


With Drops of Singing Static

by Wanderbird



Series: The Music Pooled Beneath Them [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesiac Cecil Palmer, BAMF Phil Coulson, Blind Cecil Palmer, Eldritch Abomination Cecil, Gen, Medical Inaccuracies, Post-Episode: e046 Parade Day, Strexcorp is Evil, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but also shield is a terrible organization, shield is not a terrible organization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-04-19 07:52:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14232696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: There was a prisoner.In the HYDRA base, locked alone underground, Tony found a prisoner kneeling in the dark with a hole in his head. When the prisoner turned seemingly involuntarily into some alien apparition, he took him in. He couldn't just leave the poor thing to SHIELD, after all. It didn't even seem to  know what was going on.Update: The impromptu break is over! We are back to the usual update schedule now.





	1. The Darkest Night

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is probably the most graphic, but if you skip to the second chapter instead you'll still get the plot. There's a more precise list of content warnings at the bottom, if you need it. If you want me to tag something else as well, let me know. ^_^

_Drip._

_Drip._

The pounding of feet interrupted the being’s trance, filled with the clamor of metal on metal. A door slid open, some distance away, but it could still hear the hissing, and the loud k-chunk as the door settled back into place. The being rocked ever-so-slightly in its chains. The freezing metal bit into its wrists, its neck, the tender interior of its elbows. Its shoulders felt no pain despite the awkward angle at which the being’s arms were drawn behind it, filled with the blessed static of numbness, but its eye, its eye, or the empty socket where it should be, that eye still hurt. The socket had been empty for… a long time, now. The being didn’t know how long. It didn’t quite remember how to count.

_Drip._

There were shouts, above it. Someone, something seemed to have invaded the base. The being felt a well of sadness opening in its throat, but couldn’t quite understand why. It wasn’t like whatever the invader was would be here to help it, if it knew the being was here at all. Being sad would be… futile. Besides, by the sound of it, the invaders had missed one special room, the room where soldiers always hid when invaders came, so they would be dead soon enough. Swollen tongue pressed to the top of its mouth, calves straining under the itch of unseen bugs and sending lances of agony to spear its knees where they ground into crumbling, frigid pavement, the being waited.

~~~

With a blast of pale blue from the palm of his robotic suit, Tony Stark the billionaire playboy murdered his however-many-thousandth Hydra goon, spinning to catch another under the chin with his fist to thump against the wall before they could do much damage to the suit. It wasn’t a particularly exciting event. That said, this proto-Nazi bunker seemed to have weirdly little in the way of guards for a facility housing several supposedly secret, moderately valuable copies of classified scientific notes. Tony threw a third guard down the long side of the hallway, leaving them to collapse, groaning, on the tile floor—but the guard only groaned for a second or two before an armor-clad redhead broke their neck with an almost casual twist.   
“Seriously, Tony, this is what screws us over every time,” she berated, smirking at Tony through the splashes of blood on her face. “If you leave them alive, they’re just going to come right back around and stick a bullet in your back.” Not that she often killed anyone in a particularly bloody, paint-the-town red sort of way, there had just been this one guy… Tony pulled himself back on track.   
“Yeah well, it’s not like their boss is likely to leave them alive. I may as well give them a few hours to figure their shit out before they die.” He tried on a smile behind the crystallized titanium mask of his helmet, but couldn’t get it to feel like anything but a plasticized grimace. Fuck, he hated this. “Remind me why I’m here again, the soft-hearted amateur of the team?”  
Natasha sighed. “You aren’t an amateur, Tony, you just have actual morals, even at times when they get in the way.”  
“So does Cap, and Banner, and you take them more often than you take me.”  
A glare. “I thought you didn’t like this part of your job. Besides, Banner only has morals when he isn’t angry, and Rodgers was a soldier. He’s used to killing people.” She turned briefly to shoot a woman in Hydra gear as she peeked around the corner. “Unfortunately, Banner would destroy everything we’re looking for here if he turned into a giant green rage monster, and be less than helpful on the ground if he didn’t, that’s why we’ve got him on the jet. And you are here because we needed more close-range firepower than Rodgers can supply on his own, and also Sam was busy.”  
Tony squinted. “You have close-range firepower.”  
The assassin let loose a carnivorous, if patronizing smile. “I’m better as a sniper.” Her stride carried her briskly past Tony, patting him on the arm briefly as she went. “And besides, you may work better with space to move, but you’re pretty indestructible either way. I barely even wear armor.”  
“That’s because you never get hit!” The jets on his boots fwooshed into life, and Tony floated down the hall after her with a small, but genuine, smile. Not that he’d ever show anyone, he thought as the smile twisted into a gentle smirk. He was supposed to be the snarkmaster supreme.   
“Rodgers has the last of the notes, he’s passing them off to Barton now.” Natasha dropped out of nowhere in front of the man in the titanium suit. “Anything else to hit before we go?”  
“Jesus fuck you’re sneaky, Nat!” Tony jumped. “I think—No, I’m pretty sure I heard something a minute ago, when we were back in the basement.”  
“Captives?” Her eyes bored into him.   
“I—I think so, Nat, I don’t know. I thought we searched everywhere, but I never found it. The sound of… clinking, I guess?” Tony licked his lips nervously at the agent’s continued stare. “Never mind, we don’t, we don’t have to go check it out, let’s just get back to the chopper, right?”  
Natasha shook her head, a single sharp movement. “If there might be prisoners, we have to get them out. I don’t want to be the one to leave them in this hellhole. Come on.”

~~~

Footsteps, nearer this time. The being froze, muscles tensed in anticipation, trembling taught against its chains as a flood of cool, relatively fresh air raced in to hum on its damp skin. The fear, cold and strange, more alive than anything else trapped in this corpse of a breathing body, sat tangled in its gut. Like jellyfish. It didn’t remember what jellyfish were, but the word had popped into the being’s head anyway, waiting to be thought aloud. The being was afraid, it thought, like jellyfish were afraid. Mindless, like jellyfish. Utterly certain, like jellyfish, of whatever was to come. The door creaked open, and the being waited for the end.

~~~

Tony couldn’t quite manage to force a breath into his throat when he slid the piece of wall out of the way, not when bile threatened to rise from the other end at the sight, the smell of what the room contained. Sulphur, was what it smelled like, and rotten meat, with a hint of smoke, practically solid enough to give him a concussion from the sudden impact. Natasha wasn’t nearly so stunned, nor so hesitant. Pushing past him, she ran to the figure at the center of the room, clothed as it was in rags so dirty they all seemed a uniform brown. It—he? The figure flinched away as much as his bonds would allow as the agent approached, stopping her in her tracks as she let out a series of curse words in some language that was not English. Russian, the tiny part of Tony’s brain which still had access to rational thought supplied. Probably Russian. Natasha held her hands out in front of her as she knelt, sliding them gently along one battered, unnaturally concave shoulder, flies shuffling into the air from his skin as she brushed them. The figure’s arms were bent at an awkward angle behind him, meeting almost vertically at manacled wrists. His hands were bound just below his shoulder blades, contorted to hang higher than his elbows from a ridged pole, plunged into the ground on one side and latched to what looked like a particularly heavy-duty electric dog collar on the other. The figure’s hair drooped in limp, scraggly black curls with a lighter brown section in front obscuring his eyes and the scabs on his neck where the collar dug in. His ribs very nearly punched holes in his skin, they were so prominent. The captive’s breaths, at first slow and measured, fluttered into a pant at the agent’s touch, easily visible in the movement of his stomach.   
Natasha sucked in a breath, making a face at the stench. She sidled gently under the figure, slipping her knees between him and the somewhat slack chain which ran from the front of his collar to the ground, supporting his bony chest on her shoulder. Natasha tugged something from her belt, a pair of bent needles with handles—lockpicks, Tony realized. She started fiddling with the steel band which held his elbows tight together. After a moment, her hands dropped, and Natasha placed one on her thigh, running the other hand through her hair. “Get over here, Tony.” Her voice was dull, tired. “I can’t find a lock to pick, you might have to cut this thing off.”   
The inventor jerked into motion, stumbling to stand awkwardly beside her. “What do you want me to do?”   
Natasha glared at Tony. “Get. The restraints. Off. Obviously. He won’t fall over, I’m holding him. Just get them off.”   
He nodded numbly. Now that he was closer, Tony could see that beneath the coat of mud, the figure was positively covered in tattoos. Tentacles, maybe? And eyes? He couldn’t quite make it out. In any case, Tony knelt uncomfortably behind the figure, armor digging into the insides of his knees and ankles. He couldn’t just rip the pole out, Tony thought, that would hurt the poor guy’s arms, assuming he can even still feel them. Too bad he doesn’t also have anything on his ankles, came the thought after a nausea-inducing glance down, maybe that would have kept his feet far enough off the ground to keep them from getting sepsis as the angry red streaks coming from the figure’s mud-caked ankles testified. Tony opened his visor, ignoring the flies and the stink to better see the restraints. There was, in fact a lock, but it was purely electronic. One metal-gloved fingertip and a murmur to JARVIS fixed that, and after a moment there was a tell-tale click and the elbow band opened—slightly. Tony frowned. Why was it… Oh. He blinked. Oh. The band had obviously been there a long time, he commented internally. It had been there so long it was worn into the guy’s flesh, embedded in his skin. Tony glanced up at where the deadly Natasha knelt, grimly holding on to the anonymous prisoner. Her eyes narrowed at the uncertainty in his gaze.   
“Whatever it takes, Tony,” she murmured. “Get him out.”  
He took that as indication to go ahead. The man made no response when Tony pried the steel band from the flesh of his elbows with a sickening rip of skin from the tendon of the man’s too-thin biceps, made no response when he released the blessedly looser manacles from his fragile wrists. Oddly, the figure’s arms stayed where they were, a nauseating monument to muscular atrophy and neuroplasticity. Tony cut the chain tying the collar to the pole with a quick blaze of a blowtorch, and the man slumped forward against Natasha’s shoulder with the faintest of gasps. When Tony finally forced one of the man’s arms around to the front, only then was there a discernable reaction from the captive, in the form of a series of tiny animal whimpers. The figure leaned more heavily on Natasha, arching away from the pressure on his shoulders, but when the agent declined to yield Tony finally managed to get his arms in front of his body. It still looked wrong—oh, he realized. The shoulder must be, must be dislocated from all the time spent with his arms up at that awkward angle. Fucking hell. Tony tilted his head in a vague attempt to take a quick breather, not that he could really breathe in here. What was—did that tattoo just—no, Tony admonished himself. The tattoos didn’t move, he just didn’t get a close look at them before. And the odd note of purple surrounding the man was the light reflecting off his skin, that was all. Weird light. Nothing dangerous. Tony pressed his finger to the collar.

“Sir,” came JARVIS’ comforting voice after a brief moment. “This code is rather more difficult than the previous few. I believe it must have a different origin than all the Hydra locks we’ve encountered so far.”   
“Can you unlock it?”  
“Of course, sir. You designed me well.”  
Tony gave a tight smile. “Damn straight.” After a few more seconds, a final electric shock jerked through the collar, sending the man into convulsions against Natasha’s iron grip. Tony only felt gentle tingles through the titanium of his glove.   
“Sir, that shock was at approximately 3 000 volts, 200 milliamps. Particularly with the moisture in this room, it is highly likely that if it were applied repeatedly to any normal human, that human would suffer fatal injuries to its heart function within the first thirty applications.”   
The collar finally clicked open, and Tony removed it gingerly before tossing it across the room with a sudden wave of virulent disgust. “So you’re saying either he isn’t human, or the collar is new.”  
“Or they just don’t give a shit about this guy’s well-being,” Natasha added. “Or don’t have to shock him very often.”  
“Those are all viable hypotheses, yes,” JARVIS said. “The state of the scabs, however, suggest the collar has been present for several months, though it may or may not have been used for the electricity at that point.”   
Tony bit his lip. “Great.”   
The man’s breathing had returned to normal. The shock seemed to have rendered him unconscious, judging by the way his head now dangled against Natasha’s back. The agent picked him up without even a grunt of effort, hoisting him into a fireman’s carry over her back. She licked her lips. “Ready to get out of here?”  
Tony took a deep breath, then immediately regretted it in the stale, fetid air of the cell. “Fuck yes. Lead the way.”  
“Cover me, I only have one hand free since I need to keep this guy steady.”  
He nodded. “I’m ready to go.”

The trip back to the jet was relatively quick, punctuated only by the rapid breathing of the two invaders. Natasha hardly needed to have asked for cover, since most of the base was entirely dead, at least from what they could tell. Before long, the agent had run aboard the small jet. Banner was on the job immediately.   
“What happened?” he demanded, shoving papers and equipment off the table bolted to the floor toward the back of the jet.   
Natasha lifted the man off her shoulders as soon as it was cleared, laying him out as gently as possible along its unforgiving surface. “None of the team is hurt,” she stated, heaving a deep breath of relief now that the weight was finally off her shoulders. “Tony found a prisoner in the base.”  
“One?” Banner turned to rummage in a cabinet, crouching to better see what he was doing. “Don’t they normally have more than that, if they’ve got prisoners?”  
“We weren’t expecting any,” Tony ran a hand through his hair again, having pulled his helmet off in the safety of the jet to breathe in the beautiful fresh air unsullied by death—well, except for the odor arising from the former captive.   
The doctor arose from his crouch, medical kit in hand. He strode briskly to the table, brushing matted, blood-caked hair from the man’s forehead to reveal an inch and a half of tight stitches lined horizontally along it as he surveyed the obvious damage. Banner let out a shaky breath. “Where’s Steve? And Clint?”  
“On their way,” Natasha leaned against the curved wall. “ETA less than two minutes. We should probably strap this guy down for takeoff. He was conscious but unresponsive when we found him,” she added, “so I don’t know that he’ll wake up when we do.”  
“What knocked him out?”   
Tony growled. “Electric shock from the shit keeping him tied down. JARVIS said 3 000 Volts, 0.2 Amps.”  
Bruce’s eyes flew to Tony’s. “When he’s this damp? That would cause heart failure if done more than once or twice, I guarantee you. This guy should be dead.”  
“Well dead or not, he’s breathing.” Natasha scowled. “Cap and Barton’ll be here imminently, and I’d rather we get out of here quickly than not. Something seemed off.”  
“You mean besides all the dead bodies sitting around?” Tony mumbled.   
“Let’s just get him strapped down so we can leave.”   
Banner sighed, and found the set of leather straps tucked beneath the table. “Give me a hand, it’ll go quicker.” Feeding the straps through buckles hanging from one side of the table, he passed them one by one two the far side, where Tony fastened them firmly, but not tightly, against the figure on the table, wincing at the way they dug into the figure's already battered flesh.   
“Bruce…” He wasn’t imagining it this time. Something was moving under the layer of grime which coated the former captive’s skin. Tentacles? Tony kept strapping him down, hands shaking slightly when the man’s lips parted in a quiet whimper. His fingers brushed the man’s skin as he moved to the soft leather of the next strap, and then—Tony collided with the wall of the jet, ears ringing with an incomprehensible sound like the tolling of a hundred bells merged into a single smooth note.

The helmet snapped down over his head. Bruce, Tony saw when his vision cleared, had been flung all the way to the pilot’s section and was still looking dazed. Nat was sprawled a few feet away, pushed up against a wall from the force of the blast, but as Tony watched she darted to her feet, pulling a gun out from wherever it was hidden. Before she could shoot, however, the humming of bells grew louder in his mind. Tony’s mouth parted to shout, what attacked them, what—oh.   
The man. From the cell. No longer broken and unconscious, no longer strapped to a table, a blazing violet silhouette hung suspended in the air. As Tony watched, inky blackness boiled from his skin, unfolding shining tentacles from what did in fact appear to have been tattoos hidden under the grime, a thousand oddly human eyes blinking brilliant purple from their shining skin and staring at... Natasha?   
A curse drew Tony’s attention back to the agent as she fumbled at her gun. Was it… jammed?  _Really_? Now? She growled and threw it aside, drawing another easily from her belt—also jammed, as the empty click of its trigger testified. With a sweep of a tentacle, an invisible force seemed to knock Natasha into the windshield of the jet, landing with a sickening crack. Bruce stumbled to his feet finally, rubbing his surprisingly still-human head as an aura of utter darkness surrounded the being, the deafening ring turning to static with an undercurrent of melody— _Bang!_    
A beaker exploded as a bullet flew into its side.  _Bang!_    
The being jerked, somehow still appearing as fragile as it did when chained to the floor, but it turned in any case. Another thousand eyes still stared at Tony from the tentacles which sprouted from the figure's back, writhing as if to escape their own skin. He peered across the monster’s shoulder to see—not Cap. Not Clint, either, but several dozen Hydra-uniformed soldiers who looked to be preparing a true barrage of bullets. All at once they began to shoot in earnest, a deafening chorus, and Tony braced himself for impact. Just because his armor kept the bullets from penetrating didn’t mean they couldn’t knock him back, after all. A second roared by, then two, and then the sound of gunshots petered off. Tony stared. Trapped in the pulsating field of black and purple which surrounded the eldritch figure were… bullets? The figure’s tentacles shifted about him like a throne, stretching from one side of the jet to the other as silence fell, the soldiers busy trying to figure out why their guns wouldn’t work, and a wave of uneasiness overcame Tony. Something was wrong about this, about all of it, he thought. The figure was angry, yes, a blaze of incandescent fury, but it didn’t seem to realize what was going on. There was something about it, something that evoked the frailty of its former captivity, the nonresponsive rocking of the man still locked in chains— a series of rapid clicks, and the figure fell convulsing on the ground, tentacles and purple darkness gone. Tony turned. Agent Romanoff stood just on the far side of the figure, slightly hunched around a growing stain on her abdomen, a stun gun pressed to the strange figure’s neck. Her hands were steady. “Get him strapped down and ready for transport, Banner.” Natasha stuck the device in her belt and grabbed a sniper rifle from its place on the wall in one hand and a handful of cartridges in the other, sliding onto her belly with a wince before loading it. “Stark, get your ass out there and clear the way. I’ll cover.”  
With the snap of a faceplate, Iron Man flew out to mop up the rest of the Hydra base before they figured out how to get their guns working. About a minute later, the star-spangled soldier and his archer backup approached from behind to clean up the remainder.


	2. The Falling Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Chapter 2! It's probably the shortest chapter, but it didn't really make sense to combine it with the next scene, so... 
> 
> There's aftermath of graphic stuff here, and some severe PTSD (I tried to research what that would be like in this case, but I might be wrong? This is why I tagged for medical inaccuracies XD)
> 
> Specific CWs at the bottom

Pepper was giving him _hell_ for this. “Pepper,” Tony protested. “He didn’t know what he was doing, I swear he didn’t know what he was doing. The guy’s been stuck in a Hydra base for who knows how long, just look at him, he barely even knew what was happening around him!”  
“Then give him. To Shield!” Pepper’s words were clipped. “It doesn’t matter if he knew what he was doing, the thing’s dangerous! He could have killed you!”  
“So could half the inhabitants of Stark Tower, that’s really not that much of an accomplishment.”  
“Sure, but nobody else who lives here _wants_ to kill you, Tony.” Pepper shook her hair out from in front of her shoulders, glaring at the delicate, emaciated figure swathed in clean sheets on the bed. “Well, except sometimes me.”  
“He doesn’t either.” Tony insisted, fingers combing sweaty hair from his face.  
“How do you know that?” Pepper retorted. “This guy certainly gave it a goddamned shot!”  
“He _stopped_ the bullets from hitting us! Also, we were trying to tie him to a table, I’m not surprised that he panicked when he woke up to that. Hell, _I_ probably would have tried to kill something if I woke up strapped to a table after…” Tony swallowed the panic rising in his throat at the thought of Afghanistan. It was over, he knew, but… still. “Okay I probably wouldn’t have turned into an eldritch abomination to do it, but I definitely would have started throwing punches.”  
“That _thing,_ ” Pepper emphasized, “is a monster.”  
“That thing is an experiment.” Silence fell when Natasha finally joined the argument, arms folded against her chest as she leaned against the wall with false casualness. “We don’t have the papers, but then why would Hydra keep the papers for a failed experiment?” Her head tilted slightly to the right. While Nat had cleaned up a bit since the mission, she had hardly left the figure’s side and was still in her armor, stun gun ominously close to hand. “Either way, it was human once.”  
“It isn’t anymore.” Pepper looked back at Tony, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “ _If_ it was an experiment, which you don’t know for certain, then sure. Maybe it was human once. Either way, it isn’t anymore.” She let out a quick, unfunny chuckle. “You said as much yourself, it didn’t speak, didn’t try to communicate, and it tried to kill you the moment it woke. HYDRA turned it into a weapon, and that’s sad, yes, but it doesn’t mean that being nice to it will magically change it back into an actual person, something that won’t try and murder everything it sees. Shield has the resources to contain it until such a time as it _is_ human again.”  
“ _I_ am a weapon.” Natasha growled. “ _I_ was an experiment, I was the monster of the Russian Red Room. I still am.” She looked up at Pepper, forcing the other woman to meet her eyes. “I’m not exactly comfortable with this either, but I know Fury. He’s a mysterious bastard, and while I’m pretty damned confident he’ll treat this guy better than Hydra did, I’m also pretty damned sure he’ll be better off here. With us, where the Avengers can keep an eye on him.”  
“Agent Romanov, with all due respect, you’re human.”  
“I _look_ human.” Her smile was brittle, like a blade of ice. “Bruce doesn’t. Not always, and you don’t object to him staying in the Tower.”  
“Bruce is a _scientist_ —”  
“Bruce was an experiment.” Natasha’s eyes drifted from the secretary to rest where the ceiling met the corner of the room. “When we found him, he was out of control. And if Bruce had been captured by Hydra, I’m sure the big guy would have been a lot readier to come out than he already is.”  
“The point is,” Tony interrupted, “The point is that for all we know, this guy is another Bruce Banner. For all we know, the whole eldritch abomination thing isn’t his fault, is the result of another attempt at a super-serum or something, or that’s just how he was born. But either way, if Hydra left him like that to die he obviously couldn’t have been helping them. Pepper, his collar alone should have killed him, and the state he was left in? You should have seen it.” He blinked. “Wait, no, scratch that, I don’t want anyone else to have to see that ever. Point is, if this guy wasn’t helping his captors, despite whatever it is they did to him to get him to this point, then he probably isn’t all that terrible a person. With the Avengers here to keep an eye on him, we can at least afford to give him that chance. Shield’s great, but—they won’t give him that chance.”  
Pepper sighed, one hand rubbing her forehead. “I’m still not happy about this.” She dropped the hand. “But if Fury says he can stay, well… Just keep a close eye on him.” With a small shake of her head, she strode from the room.  
Natasha gave the scientist an unreadable look. “You know Fury may not allow this.”  
Tony bit his lip. The director certainly wouldn’t approve, but—he had to give the prisoner a shot at being human, one where he was actually conscious to do so. And what Tony said to Pepper was more real than he thought, came the realization—Fury wouldn’t give the poor thing a chance, not really, he’d just lock the prisoner in a cell somewhere to wait out the rest of his life, and that wasn’t… fair. Tony huffed out a breath. “Sucks for him.”

A stirring in the bed brought both pairs of eyes to its lonely occupant. Cleaned and bandaged now, the man had been asleep (unconscious, rather) for hours. They hadn’t been expecting him to wake up this soon, but, well. He had woken earlier than expected from the collar’s final blast of electricity as well, it was perfectly reasonable to think the drugs Bruce injected him with after Nat shocked him into oblivion with that stun gun would also wear off early. Speaking of Bruce, he’d managed to puzzle out some of what happened while Clint helped him clean the prisoner up. What he found—well, it was a miracle Bruce had retained his human form. He and the archer had yet to share much of what they learned, save that the prisoner’s eyes were glazed over with cataracts, intravenous fluids and antibiotics were a must, and that if nothing else they would need to drain the fluids which had accumulated in his myriad of infected wounds, particularly the wreck of his ankles and the deep gash on his upper back.  
As Tony watched, the prisoner seemed to finally realize something had changed. The hands twitched, first, shaky in their newfound freedom. A moment later, a ripple sped up the man’s body as his mouth opened, chin pressed toward the ceiling. His eyes opened. Unlike in the jet, these eyes had only the barest hint of violet to them, being sealed as Bruce described in milky white cataracts instead. His hair, washed and cropped, the mats cut out of it, was mostly black and curly as the man’s nondescript brown skin would suggest. The only exception was a patch in the front which grew bleach-white with streaks of purple, even at the roots from what Tony could tell. Endless black tattoos of tentacles engulfed his body, lined with stylized eyes like branches were lined with leaves. They had been moving already when Banner stripped and washed the man, continuing their lazy squirms until only an hour or so after Tony came back to take over guard duty, but now the eyes were totally still, staring unblinking at the surrounding room. Tony finally pulled up a chair and sat, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. After another minute or so, the man in the bed moved his head, just a few inches to one side. A shoulder rolled slightly, then the other. Tendons flexed between rigid joints.  
Finally, Tony spoke. “Hey.” He tried to keep his tone maximally gentle in the hopes that the stranger wouldn’t freak the fuck out again. The man froze anyway, clutching the mattress with nailless fingers as his breathing sped up again, eyes gaping up like those of fish on land. “It’s okay,” Tony soothed. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you. You’re safe.” Iron Man glanced at Natasha. “You’re in a hospital room in a guarded facility in the US under SHIELD authority, nobody can hurt you here.” Not technically lies, even if this “hospital” had only the one room, and was usually only used when Tony or Bruce hurt themselves in the lab—okay mostly Tony, Bruce was always pretty careful, and wasn’t working with ridiculously hot metal. After a few moments, the man’s breathing relaxed, scrunched face suggesting that the outward signals of calm took a decided effort on his part. Eventually Natasha asked a question. “You have cataracts on your eyes. Can you see?”  
The man seemed to freeze again then, as if terrified by the prospect of having to answer a question, and the agent softened. “It’s okay to say no. We’re not going to do anything to hurt you either way.” The man bit his lip, nostrils flaring as he calmed himself once more, then shook his head ever-so-slightly.  
“That’s fine,” Natasha said. “That’s perfectly fine. There’s no-one in the room but the three of us, okay?” She sat back on a chair with the creak of leather, words slow and clear. “Your feet are badly hurt enough you shouldn’t be walking on them, but if you need something, just ask. If nobody answers, there’s a call button on the table next to your bed, just to the right of your shoulder. What’s your name?”  
A fluttering breath as the prisoner thought, and then another. Finally a tiny shrug was seen in his shoulders.  
“Can you speak?” Tony asked.  
The man blinked. He seemed to be mustering his strength, something rearranging itself under his skin, and then— a nod.  
Tony shared a look with the agent across from him. “Could you please demonstrate that for us? So that we know for sure?”  
It took almost an entire minute, but eventually sound was produced in the stranger’s throat, deep and hoarse from overexertion, hardly more than a whisper. “I… I can talk.” His phrasing, while hesitant, was oddly clear and precise, marked by the gentle slurring of a tv announcer sort of American accent.  
“What’s your name?”  
A pause. The man squinted, a frown deepening in his face. “I don’t… I don’t know?” He froze. “Why don’t I know? Am I supposed to know? I should… this is important. I should know this.” He flinched when no sound came from the two observers by the wall after a couple seconds.  
Tony glanced at Natasha, biting his lip. Was this memory loss… permanent? Was it even normal memory loss? He sucked in a breath.  
“No!” the man half-shouted, voice breaking. “No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m trying to remember. I really am, I’m trying, I’m being good. Please don’t hurt me, please…” His hands clenched the blanket, knees drawing up to his chest. “Please…”  
Tony started to get up, but the stranger’s twitch of dread was so obvious—the scientist winced and sat back down on the chair, hands on his thighs. “It’s okay,” Tony soothed. “It’s okay, you don’t need to know right now, everything is gonna be fine.” He cracked a little smile. “I’m gonna call you John Doe for now, okay? I’m not about to just refer to you as ‘that guy’ until we figure you out.”  
A meek nod as the figure—John—kneaded the sheets in his knobby hands almost as a cat would, breaths long and choppy. At least he seemed to understand they wanted him calm? Tony had mixed feelings about that. I mean on one hand, at least he wouldn’t flip out and turn into a tentacle monster again, assuming he had any kind of control over it, but… did this guy even realize he was out of Hydra hands? Tony did say he was in SHIELD custody, but did the man understand what that meant?  
It was Natasha who finally broached the subject of tentacles, face flicking to the man in the bed as she leaned forward. “John. I don’t mean to make you panic,” she prefaced, “and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t remember. But... do you remember anything about how we brought you here?”  
John’s eyes narrowed, and after long minute he answered. “I was… huh. I’m not… sure? I was trapped. I was alone, I remember I was alone, and there was water dripping somewhere but I was… thirsty?” His tongue seemed to play with the words in his mouth as he thought. “I was there a long time. I hurt. My shoulders felt almost… fuzzy, I guess, like radio static. There were noises somewhere.” John paused, blinked. “Something touched me.” He licked his lips. “It hurt. And then… I was afraid, well of course I was afraid,” came a thread of babble, “I’m always afraid, afraid of what I know, of what I don’t know, of what I don’t yet know that I don’t yet know…” His voice fell into a melodious rhythm as his wandering thoughts trailed to a halt. “Anyway. I was afraid. And then I was… here.”  
“Are you afraid now?” Tony couldn’t help but ask. He knew the answer as soon as the words left his mouth but… still. It felt like a blow to the gut. Yes, their mystery man had said. Of course I’m afraid, well he didn’t say the of course, but Tony could practically hear it underlying the forced calm of their new John Doe’s voice. But either way, unless the man was lying, he didn’t know jack shit about the eldritch abomination crawling under his skin, lurking in the ink which decorated his entire body—wait. If he didn’t know about the eldritch… thing, Tony realized, if he wasn’t awake then, did John even know about the tattoos? He was blind, he may very well just not have seen them. They couldn’t be from before, the tattoos _were_ the tentacles, weren’t they? No. Not decorations, said a cold knot in Tony’s gut. The tattoos weren’t decorations because decorations were consensual, these were brands, lithographed into his skin.  
Toes clenched against the floor, Tony continued the interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: vague descriptions of severe injuries, amnesia-related panic, discussion of non-con body modification, discussion of eldritch horrors, ptsd


	3. The Shifting Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many people left comments! :D Thank you guys so much, I'm really glad you're enjoying it! <3
> 
> This chapter'll be less graphic than the last two. There's still some PTSD stuff, obviously, that doesn't go away in three weeks, but it's otherwise pretty clean. As usual, there are more specific CWs at the bottom.

Days passed.

John Doe managed to stand, eventually, shuddering with the effort. With the help of all the physical therapy experts Tony could buy, he was soon consigned to a wheelchair instead of his bed, where he could be wheeled around to wherever he pleased. Oddly, John didn’t seem to need help using a sight cane, and was strong enough despite his utterly emaciated frame to push his own chair after only about another week.

 “Dr. Banner!” the man beamed at the room from where he flopped on a wheelchair by the window, sunlight making the white-and-violet patch glow against his otherwise black hair. “You are he, I’m assuming. Agent Barton did say you might be showing up the last time he was here to keep an eye on me, and I don’t know who else would have reason to appear directly after a physical therapy session. I must admit, I’m usually pretty useless around now.”  
Bruce smiled, stifling a laugh at John’s outfit, a bright red Hawaiian shirt under a textured sweater-vest with purple furry pants. “Yeah, I’m Banner. Bruce, actually. It’s good to finally meet you while you’re conscious.”  
The man levered himself forward in the chair, balancing the long white walking cane against his chest. “You as well! My name is John, though you probably already know that.” He licked his lips. “Well, it isn’t actually John, but it may as well be. John feels wrong.” A small frown. “But never mind that! Agent Barton said you were a scientist.”  
Bruce sunk uneasily into a leather chair a few feet from the former prisoner. For some reason he actually felt somewhat uncomfortable about John’s last statement—it was the way John pronounced the word scientist, he realized, John seemed to say it with a gleeful, almost carnivorous sense of enjoyment. “I… am,” he answered cautiously. “I mostly specialize in biochemistry, radiation, and nuclear physics. Is this about your…” How could he put this? Tentacle problem? It was so much more than tentacles. Eldritch alter ego? “Your tattoos?”

A beat passed in silence.

John cocked his head with a distinct frown. “Tattoos? What tattoos?”  
The scientist blinked. Did he not… “The tentacles? I understand you don’t remember much about being brought here, but they have emerged since. Mostly when you’re asleep, I’m told.”  
“I don’t remember having tattoos.” John’s whitened eyes bored into him. “And I am at least moderately certain I have no tentacles to speak of. I’m sure someone would have told me.”  
“You don’t…” Bruce let out a shaky breath. “You don’t know, do you.” It wasn’t really a question anymore.  
The other man froze, hand clenched white-knuckled on his cane. His mouth opened, ever so slightly. “Ah, I, of course I know.” There was a short, mirthless chuckle as John hunched slowly in on himself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think to…” His free hand massaged the fuzz of black hair on the back of his neck in a blatantly anxious gesture as his eyes watered, implacable yet unseeing gaze turned toward the floor. The other hand, still clutching the white cane, curled in on itself like that of some ancient, helpless animal. “I’m so sorry,” John whispered.  
Footsteps sounded as Dr. Banner approached. There was a rustle of clothing, a faint creaking in the floor. John tried not to move, tried to be good, but he couldn’t keep his hands from trembling as they grasped at his face. He didn’t remember any tentacles, or any tattoos. But if, but if the _scientist_ said he should have them, if anyone in charge said so, really… (but especially the scientist) he must. How could they be wrong? John jumped when a hand was rested gently on his knee.  
“Hey,” Dr. Banner cooed.  
Ah, came the thought. That was the scientist’s hand. John let out a teary, humorless chuckle, guilt settling leaden in to his gut. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry I didn’t know, I’m sorry I lied.” Oh beams, he really had lied, lied to someone in charge, no no no no nonono--  
“It’s okay. It’s okay, John, I really don’t mind.”  
He was lying, wasn’t he. Dr. Banner was lying, and something horrible was going to happen. John clenched his hands where they dug into the skin of his forehead, the row of stitches, the aching _absence_ behind those stitches, and for some reason what really hurt, what hurt more than the warm trickle spawned from the hole in his head, more than the terror knotted in his gut at disappointing a superior, what really really hurt was that—he’d disappointed the scientist. A tiny groan escaped John’s throat. Why did this one person matter so much? He’d never met Dr. Banner before now, why did he care _so much?_   Soon there were warm hands on his own, beautiful, perfect, _wrong_ hands on his own, tugging them gently but firmly away from the old twine embedded in his head.

The doctor hissed softly, and something about that hiss, something besides the fear of other people, something sent alarm bells clamoring through John’s head. He gave up control of his hands, letting Dr. Banner hold them out of the way while he panted. John couldn’t help the tears which trickled down his cheeks, the quickening breath which fluttered in his abdomen as he submitted himself to observation. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it, John tried to tell himself as the scientist continued to murmur comforting words. He was blind. What could he do? For all he knew Dr. Banner wasn’t even really there, for all he knew it was someone else. For all he knew, John flinched from the thought which rose unbidden to mind, for all he knew he was alone in the empty universe, speaking to no-one. John shivered. Maybe this was all the world was, was an unfamiliar voice and unsolicited touches, maybe it was all held aloft merely by his own delusions and his smooth, sonorous voice.  
“John?” the scientist had finally let go of his hands. “John, can you talk to me?”  
“I—” Wait. Smooth, sonorous voice? John frowned. His voice was rough, scraggly, nothing like the lonely thought indicated.  
“John.” Banner’s voice was smooth, but not precisely sonorous, more the sort of voice one uses to calm a wild creature. “John, can you hear me?”  
“Of course I can hear you,” John snapped. “You’re the only one here,” if you even are here, came the thought. “What else am I going to do? Listen to the walls?” A sort of numbness settled over John’s shoulders at that, terror shrouded by the drops of frozen static rolling down his spine. Something unfamiliar twitched against his skin—John shuddered, then froze as the buzzing spread over his limbs to weigh him down like a winter coat.

There was a series of rustling thumps as Banner jerked away, falling onto his forearms and scrambling backward across the carpet. “Your—your tattoos,” the scientist stuttered.  
“ _What_ about my tattoos?” John hissed, levering himself partly out of the wheelchair to lean forward. Something was _twisting_ under his skin, hot and wet and trailing melody in its wake. That should have scared him too, upon reflection, but for now the musical fuzz was here and it was _everything_.  
The scientist let out a short breath. “They’re shifting.” He laughed nervously. “Your tattoos are shifting!” Bruce couldn’t quite keep the excitement from his speech, though in his thoughts it was intermingled with as much terror as anticipation. It was fascinating to watch the process in person, though, instead of merely over JARVIS’ security cameras, so much slower than that one day on the jet. Bruce massaged the back of his neck with one hand trying to shake the ringing from his head as the two-dimensional tentacles trailing across the amnesiac’s skin twined about those emaciated arms.  
“What do you mean, _shifting?”_  
Bruce barely noticed the man’s question, much less the way his voice had slipped into some other mode, smooth and deep, melodious to match the singing-bowl tone that filled the room. His attention was far too absorbed in staring at the motion, the little chunk of black trying to tug itself from the row of stitches. And then--  
Thin white cane forgotten, John lunged forward in his chair, trapping the scientist’s coat beneath its wheels as a clatter marked the fall of the cane. His veins stood stark against the skin of his scarred, hunger-marked arms as they trembled.  
How was he that strong? Bruce barely had time to wonder before John dragged him out from under the wheelchair. There was a loud rip as the scientist’s coat tore, straining uncomfortably at Bruce’s shoulder as John hauled him up. He stared at Bruce a moment with those empty, unseeing eyes. As the scientist stared in apprehension, a bead of black-tinged lilac fell from the stitches on John’s forehead—  
Abruptly John let out a cry, clapping his hands to his head and leaving Bruce to fall back to the floor. His voice spiraled back into the familiar hoarseness as he toppled forward and sobbed into the carpet, fingers white against his forehead. “Fuck.” The tattoos were still, their violet eyes closed once more. “Fuck,” John wheezed. Tears dripped from his gaping eyes to leave a growing patch of damp on the floor.

“What is it?” Bruce stood up in a crouch, brushing himself off. John’s frantic hands had left marks on his shoulder, white turning now to red, not to mention the rip in his lab coat. “What happened?”

“Hah…” the blind man’s wrists slipped up to tangle in his hair. “I… I have a headache. It’s nothing to worry yourself about, Car—” He froze. “Carlos? You’re not… your name’s not Carlos, right?” John’s voice was so… small, now, so weak.  
Bruce felt his heart twinge. John must have known someone by that name. A brother, maybe? And now… “My name isn’t Carlos,” he confirmed softly. “I’m Bruce, Bruce Banner.”  
Pale eyes turned waveringly toward his voice. “Who is Carlos?” The anger was gone, now, from John’s face, replaced by trembling insecurity. “Why do you remind me of him,” he asked to the silent room. “and why does the thought of Carlos make me so… sad. Angry. What—” he blinked. “Where did you go? Scientist?”

Bruce squinted. Did John… forget he was here? He knelt beside the man crumpled beside the wheelchair. “John. I need you to listen to me, okay? You need to focus on where you are now. Carlos is probably somebody from the past. Somebody you’re beginning to remember. I mean, I’m not sure, amnesia isn’t exactly my field of study,” he flashed an uneasy smile, “but from what I understand that’s how memory recovery often works, is you remember bits and pieces of whatever’s hidden.” Banner hauled himself to his feet. John really didn’t seem aggressive, honestly, just… cornered. Scared. Confused by everything that was going on, and now his own mind. Unfortunately, he also looked like he was still about a million miles away. “John?”  
After several seconds, John seemed to give a full-body shake, then his head arrowed toward the sound of Banner’s voice. He frowned, exhaustion apparent in every line of his face. “I… I’m sorry, Dr. Banner.” His hands finally dropped to the floor. “If you don’t mind, I would, I would really like to go back to my—the, the room you all have so kindly given me.” He swallowed. “If that’s okay.”  
“Of course that’s okay, you’re welcome to go wherever you like within the Tower. Just let me give you a lift so you can get there.” Bruce slipped his arms under the other man’s shoulders and heaved, placing John back in his chair with a thump.  
“And… if you don’t mind,” John finished weakly once he was settled back into the depths of the chair, “I would really like it if you could hand me my cane. I’m sorry, I must have dropped it.”

Bruce didn’t actually get around to telling anyone what happened. Not about the tattoos, not the sudden return of John’s more eldritch qualities, not even the man’s apparent obliviousness to both of the above. It wasn’t that Bruce was too embarrassed to explain, (or embarrassed at all, or confused, or… definitely not). Rather, an invasion of robotic spiders showed up and the scientist was called in to help destroy them. He certainly wasn’t the slightest bit glad that it provided a distraction from the events of that morning, not at all. Bruce did, however, wish he could find an opportunity to prod Tony about those tattoos. Because if John hadn’t known, and Tony hadn’t told him… Bruce bit his lip. There had to be a reason.  
By the time a spider launched itself at Bruce’s face, he was more than angry enough. The superhero roared, and the world was lost in white-glowing rage.

 ~~~

Agent Coulson stared at the recording of JARVIS’ surveillance footage, the barest hint of surprise flickering across his face. He leaned back, rewinding the section. The tentacles, he thought, those tentacles. Those eyes. Phil tilted his head ever-so-slightly to the left. Hopefully he was interpreting this right. JARVIS rarely took particularly precise footage of the building out of some misguided urge to protect its privacy, as if the inhabitants of Stark Tower had any to begin with. And the audio, the audio was even worse. Nevertheless, the inkling of a suspicion twinkled in the agent’s mind, laced with simultaneous dread, fury, and the comfort of home. Phil Coulson stood up, and his face traced a frigid smile.

 ~~~

John took a deep breath, feeling the roughness of the lap blanket between his fingers. Everything would be fine, they assured him, every time. Whatever he wanted to do was okay. Asking a question… that was covered under “whatever”, right?  
He put down his fork with a clink. And even if it wasn’t allowed, he thought, this was probably the time to ask in any case—that agent wasn’t there, nor the beautiful, amazing, but irretrievably wrong scientist. The man in leather—Agent Barton—and Captain Rogers were also still out helping to hunt down the source of the mechanical spiders which had apparently appeared three days ago. Stark was gone as well, but the Falcon—Sam, the man insisted—was here. He acted nice, maybe he would be okay with it. And the woman, Agent Romanov, she seemed hostile but had never hurt him yet. John swallowed his fear and when the next lull in conversation came—he spoke.  
“I’ve—There’s a man that often lurks inside the Tower, particularly around the room I’ve been staying in.” The shake in John’s voice was minimal even as his chin jerked up in an unconscious tic. “Who… who is that?”

Agent Romanov lifted an eyebrow. “Most of the people in Stark Tower are men. Can you elaborate?” she prodded gently.  
John tilted his head down, hoping it would be construed as a sign of obedience. “I’m sorry, I can’t give a visual description. He’s… His voice is always the same, fairly high for a man, and he walks quietly but wears leather shoes, I can hear them creak. He seems to have some authority because people do what he asks, but nobody seems to really know him. Agent something.”  
Sam blinked. “You mean Agent Coulson? That SHIELD guy? I didn’t know he spent that much time around the Tower.”  
“He’s keeping an eye on John, I believe.” Nat grimaced. “He doesn’t trust us to guard you, I suppose, even with Fury’s blessing.”  
“I remember him.” John tilted his head.  
A pause. “Like, remember who he is, or…” Sam trailed off. “Did he have something to do with HYDRA?”  
A bitter chuckle left John’s throat. “No, no. Nothing like that. I still don’t have any actual memories from before HYDRA, but he’s not… no,” John sighed. “He isn’t HYDRA, he’s just… familiar. More familiar than anyone I’ve met so far, I can’t get it out of my head.”  
Unbeknownst to him, Sam and Natasha exchanged a glance across the table.

“John,” Nat began. “What do you know about Coulson? Anything beyond his… well not his appearance, but his voice, I guess?”  
John bit his lip. “I don’t… I’m not entirely certain. He has… he doesn’t show much emotion, but he is often angry, and more vulnerable than he allows to show. I’m surprised to find him here, for some reason? I belong somewhere else, I believe, but I can’t say why, and I don’t know whether I actually know that or if I just feel anxious. And I’ve met him before.”  
“Or maybe just someone like him.” Sam studied John’s uncomfortable expression. “It might not have actually been Coulson, if you just met someone similar.”  
A hiss. “I don’t know! I don’t know,” John buried his head in his hands. “I keep getting a headache whenever I think about it.”  
“It’s alright! It’s alright, man,” Sam turned back to his dinner. “You don’t have to know, but thanks for tellin’ us.” He smiled. “And hey, maybe if you talk to him, you’ll figure something out. If your implicit memory’s doing okay, that makes it a hell of a lot easier to try and figure out some of what happened. Well it’s still not easy,” he amended as John poked absently at his food again, “but at least there’s a pretty decent chance we’ll eventually make some progress on those memories.”  
John didn’t have the courage to tell Sam he wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to uncover his memories, but it was evident in his hunched posture and renewed silence. After a few minutes of Sam and Natasha chattering between themselves, John set down his food half uneaten, snatching the sight cane from where it leaned against the table. “I’m going to bed. If nobody minds.” Awkwardly balancing the cane in front of his chest with one hand, John turned his wheelchair one-handed and began skimming the end of the cane expertly along the ground with the other as he made his way back to his room.

 

It was odd.

 

The doctors said the cataracts were probably caused by whatever left the excessive scarring around John’s eyes, or at least that said scarring was the only reason they could really see for the blindness. But… the scarring around his eyes, they said, was almost entirely from years ago, judging by how well it healed. These cataracts were new.  
Sam watched the stranger leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: tentacles, eye horror, amnesia (like always)


	4. The Empty Sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is again fairly clean.

Phil Coulson straightened his stack of papers, setting them on the desk with a thump. Only then did he sit down. John, or so the team had apparently decided to call him, sat opposite the agent in a stiff metal chair. No longer wheelchair-bound for short distances, apparently John was doing much better with his seeing cane now that he didn’t have to juggle it alongside a wheelchair, though learning to walk again had been challenging. Within a week or two, the prisoner would be well enough for cataract surgery and whatever other little things needed fixing now that he was no longer fainting from hunger and barely able to move his arms. Also, thanks to Banner, he finally actually knew about the tattoos, the achingly familiar tattoos. In any case, Phil figured now was a good time to interview the man properly. He cleared his throat, plastering a small, friendly smile on his face. “Hello, Mr. John Doe.”

Oh, good, came the thought. John was clever enough not to fall for the façade of friendliness, judging by his blank look. Or the man just didn’t see it, of course, but Coulson had hoped his voice would be equally friendly. “I hear you have a bit of an amnesia problem. How’s the recovery going? I hear you’ve been healing well physically, and been adjusting reasonably well to normal life.”  
‘John’ gave a slight nod. “Well enough.” His voice was different from what Coulson expected, not the silken, sonorous sound of that familiar patter but deep, and rough like someone had embedded chunks of gravel into the flesh of his throat. It was probably from all the screaming.  
“I’m glad to hear it.” Coulson smoothed out the papers in front of him, making sure the hiss of friction was audible as he did. There would be no use, after all, to disorienting ‘John’ unnecessarily. The man’s face was narrower, more gaunt than a certain person’s, but with similar bone structure, at least enough that Coulson could make out what was probably the original face shape under its mask of repeated breaks and scarring. He was neither tall, nor short, more thin than fat despite having fixed the malnutrition issue, but his hair was… achingly familiar, to say the least. “Out of curiosity,” he asked, “do you dye your hair? It’s, ah, it’s mostly black, but you have a patch of mixed white and purple in the front.”  
John blinked. “I do not.” Still, _still_ , this Agent Coulson was horrendously familiar—his voice, his mannerisms… Ugh. John had assumed that sustained contact with the man would alleviate some of this discomfort, but—well. It was only getting worse. A headache loomed overhead like a storm cloud shoving incessantly at the barriers of that hole in his head. And that hole, the beautiful Doctor Banner said it truly was a hole, empty space bored into his skull with access to the brain. John gnawed gently on his lip. The socket always seemed to send hollow pain throughout his skull when Agent Coulson was near, or when he spent too much time with the scientist. Maybe the two were related, somehow?

The agent was silent for a short moment. “Fascinating.” Coulson’s tone belied nothing but the same mild interest which had filled his words the whole time. “You see, I was wondering… where are you from? Do you know?”  
Obviously John had no idea. Why did the agent even bother asking? John gave an inward sigh. “No sir. I’m not sure.” From the slightly longer pause, John gathered that the agent was surprised. “I have severe retrograde amnesia, sir, I’m sorry.”  
“You don’t call anyone else sir.”  
“I’m sorry.” John clenched his hands in an attempt to calm the fear rising in his belly. It was not necessary. He knew it was not necessary. But this man, this _singular_ man… something wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be here. Neither of them should be here.  
“What do you think about Doctor Banner?”  
John jumped. “E—excuse me?”  
Coulson shifted slightly. “What do you think about Doctor Banner? Please, be completely sincere. I’m curious.”  
He blinked. “Dr. Banner?” John’s eyes fluttered closed like a cat content in its beam of sunlight. The description flowed from his lips in languid honey as he answered. “Dr. Banner is perfect. He is perfect, and clever, and beautiful, and…” A swift intake of breath from across the table. Was the agent actually surprised by something? “Well, he’s just… wrong.” John admitted. “He’s perfect and beautiful, his teeth like a military cemetery, familiar but not.” His voice had slipped from its broken gravel into some deep and bell-like tone, seemingly without having noticed the change. “And his _hair,_ his hair is tragically short, his smile is—”  
“How do you know about his teeth?” Coulson interrupted. “And his hair? You can’t see it. Is there some inappropriate behavior on Dr. Banner’s part I need to report?”  
John froze. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. How I know that, I don’t… remember.”  
“It’s quite alright.” Coulson’s hand began a series of taps and brushes along the tabletop as he continued. “I’m told you didn’t know you had tattoos when you got here. What do you know about those?” _Tap brush tap. Brush brush pause, tap. Pause, brush brush pause brush tap tap tap._ The succession continued for a couple seconds after Coulson finished talking, _brush brush pause tap._ A phrase came to mind as John stared— _Remember me?_

John shook his head faintly. “I don’t remember how the tattoos got there, and people have the strangest reactions to them, even though they feel… normal. To me. I suppose they don’t exactly feel as nonexistent as I would expect mere ink to feel, but… They’re a part of me,” the prisoner shrugged. “Doctor Banner said the tattoos were moving at one point, but tattoos don’t move. That’s impossible. And I _don’t_ remember you! You seem familiar,” his voice faltered, “but I… don’t remember you.”  
“But you understand what I was… saying,” Coulson prodded. This time he put the Morse through a simple substitution cipher as well, moving on from the brief prod to one of the coded signals he’d used in the Boy Scouts. It didn’t need to be a complicated cipher, after all, just secure enough that the secret police couldn’t interpret it on the fly when groups of children were found skulking about some unauthorized location. If this _was_ the man Coulson thought it was, even he would understand such a basic code. _Tap brush tap tap. Tap brush brush, tap tap brush tap. Brush tap tap pause brush tap tap tap._ “Fascinating.” The agent leaned his head on one hand. “What about the stitches in your forehead? I’m sure you’ve noticed those.”  
“Why would I be undercover?” John looked more confused than ever. “I don’t… I just want to know what’s going on! If, if that’s okay.” John’s voice had returned to its rough new normal with the spiral of frustration which filled him. “And I don’t know why the stitches are there, they just are! They hurt, they ache, they shouldn’t _be there_. Or something behind them is what hurts, but there’s nothing behind them, Dr. Banner took an x-ray and there’s nothing behind them but a hole in my head,” braced on his fingertips, John leaned forward intently as he repeated it, “why is there a hole in my head?” he snarled, hands clenched on the edge of the table.

Coulson felt sick. On the one hand, ‘John’ obviously understood him. On the other, he was still acting like he remembered—nothing. So either he truly didn’t remember (and who was this stranger then, if not himself?), or… ‘John’ didn’t trust Coulson anymore. Fair, said a voice in his head. That would be fair. But the truly nauseating part of the whole situation was… the hole. If John was in fact who Coulson thought, no, knew he was, that hole used to host his eye. His one _functional_ eye. The eye which gave him visions, the eye given to him by station management when he began working at NVCR, _that_ eye.  
If the man honestly didn’t know who he was… Coulson couldn’t just tell him. But the voice, that voice, so familiar from countless hours spent listening to the radio, the daily shows, the 24-hour emergency broadcasts during Valentine’s Day and other emergencies, it ripped at his heartstrings to hear that voice divorced from its owner.

“Please.” John sounded exhausted. “Please, if you’re not going to tell me, just… leave.”  
Coulson took in a breath, gathering his composure (not that it was missing). He stood up. “Thank you for your help.” Phil refused to call this man John Doe. This man wasn’t some unwanted wanderer, some secretive criminal lost on the streets. The SHIELD agent tore his gaze away from his interviewee. He _had_ a name. He had a home.

“There’s a name you might want to look into, someone who… reminds me a lot of you.” The agent’s voice showed no sign of the strangled grief hanging from his throat. Phil tapped out a new sequence on the desk as quick as thought, translated into a much more difficult cipher in case the man truly was under some deep cover for whatever reason.  
If not— maybe he would find it on his own, and remember. _[... . .... .. ... . .. .. ..... .... ..... ... . . ..... .... . ..... .... .. . ...]_

Phil’s hands very carefully did not shake as he left the room, nodding briefly to Clint on the way out. Cecil Palmer, the prisoner found in some random HYDRA scientific facility was _Cecil Palmer._ Phil should have listened to the radio more often after joining SHIELD. No matter that he could only pick it up via bloodstone circle, no matter that his bloodstones had been lost during the Chitauri invasion when Phil himself was no longer around to keep an eye on them, he should have been _listening to the radio_. Because—if Cecil, bound by ancient and unbreakable contracts to run the radio show, if Cecil was no longer within the confines of Night Vale? A faint breath escaped the agent’s lungs. Something was terribly, unspeakably wrong. His stride just the slightest bit rushed, Phil left Stark Tower, pulling out his phone.  
How could he figure out what happened without access to his bloodstones? Simple enough, Phil thought. There were other immigrants from Night Vale, many of whom worked at SHIELD. Some of them were bound to be recent immigrants, they would be the best people to ask. Interrogate? Ask. Phil gave an inward sigh. Whoever he found probably wouldn’t be alone, and so whoever else was around them would look askance at anything more thorough. Failing that, he supposed, he could find Agent Cooper, and try to borrow her bloodstones again, or the community bloodstone circle beneath SHIELD headquarters if he had to.  
His mind made up, Phil dialed a number and waited.

~~~

Cecil Palmer, John rolled the name around in his mouth. Cecil Palmer. It had taken him long enough to decode the gentle taps and hisses of friction on the table, though his brain had somehow managed to still supply an answer despite not having the key, or the encryption method. How did that even work? His own hands, uncontrolled, had sketched out a diagram along the smooth table in gentle touches as John spaced out until eventually a message came to mind. A name, to be precise, utterly and completely unfamiliar: Cecil Palmer.  
It was strange. Normally, John thought, there were always certain impressions which rode alongside a name, memories or stereotypes of the people who bear it. With this one—nothing. The void was all that came to mind with the name Cecil Palmer, a complete, itching absence of meaning. And beyond that, John added as he hauled himself up on the sturdier of his two canes, what was up with all the Morse code? And the taps, numbers one through five? Maybe Phil—Agent Coulson, he thought shakily, why would the man’s first name be Phil—maybe Agent Coulson thought he was someone else. But either way, he was fairly certain that most people didn’t just… understand Morse code, didn’t have the letters pop into their head and form words at the speed they were generated like any other language. Certainly his captors, or caretakers hadn’t seemed to when John had tapped out messages to avoid having to speak while he was still bedridden. He paused, fumbling with the longer, smooth cane to hold it diagonally in front of his belly, tip just touching the ground. Leaning heavily on the other, John left the room, sight cane skimming wide, gentle arcs along the floor in front of him.

~~~

Far away.  
Far away, in a desert town, a man’s arms trembled as he leaned on a desk.  
His hair was cropped short, his face creased by worry and the looming unknown of middle age, and his fingers clenched white about a dusty scrap of stiff brown cloth—a badge, specifically, embroidered with silvery numbers and marred by deep red splotches which left streaks of rust on his fingers.  
“If you can help me—” he glanced up at the ancient oak door standing patiently in his living room, cracked open to show a desert scene not unlike the town in which the man stood. “Well,” the man continued, cracking a painful smile, “he would have done anything to protect our town.”  
The other gave a faint nod, propped against the door. “And so would you,” he prodded.  
Steve Carlsberg’s thumb ran over the raised, frayed edges of the girl scout troop number badge in his hand as he licked his lips. His eyes met the other man’s. “Anything.”

~~~

“JARVIS?” John asked as he eased himself into a chair.  
“Yes, sir?”  
“Is there a way for me to use a computer?”  
“There is,” came the automated voice as answer. “Master Stark actually built you a special braille display for exactly that purpose. Are you able to read braille?”  
John gave a faint frown, cradling his head in his arms. “I have no idea. Is there a way I could try, if that would be alright?”  
“Of course, sir.” JARVIS replied. “Allow me to fetch it for you, it is currently in one of Master Stark’s laboratories, but he did inform me that I might acquire it for you should you wish to use it.” Only a few seconds later, the whirring of machines heralded the arrival of the device as it thumped onto the table in front of him. Mr. Stark’s tower was full of machines like those, flying from room to room on the hiss of fire, seemingly at the AI’s command.  
John felt gently along the rim of the device for a moment. “How… how does it work?”  
“Ordinarily, sir would have to plug it into a computer, but in this case it connect via Bluetooth to my own systems.” He paused. “For starters, I will display a simple sentence for you, that we might determine the extent of your knowledge of the language, or rather of the braille script. Kindly place your fingers a bit farther forward than their current location, along the smooth indentation in the device. It is a sort of rounded rectangle. If you place your fingers, just one or two, directly at the top left, you should feel a single raised dot.”  
John acquiesced, sliding his fingers along it until they felt a raised curve along the edge, and a rougher point sticking out. A second or two after his fingertips settled, the dot retracted back into the main surface of the display.  
“That dot was only there to aid you in finding the correct place from which to begin, by the way,” JARVIS elaborated. “I will now display a sentence. Can you interpret it?”  
Smooth as honey, a series of firm marks raised themselves against his skin where it rested on the display. John closed his eyes. Oh, he thought.  
“Oh.”  
John brushed his fingers easily along the letters, left to right and back from the beginning. He understood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to do my research regarding the use of computers for blind people? But also Tony Stark, so I took some liberties with the braille reader. 
> 
> Specific CWs: amnesia
> 
> For the Night Vale scout ciphers, I took an abbreviated version of what I wanted to say (for the signal, that is, not the name), in this case cover—yes/no became cvr yn. I stuck it through a simple substitution cipher, with (in this case) the key On my honor be prepared, since scouting mottos seemed appropriate. ^_^  
> I probably shouldn’t have spent quite this much time figuring out ciphers, but it was so much fun. I’ll try and come up with other excuses to use it, this’ll be the go-to cipher method for Night Vale scouts. The Book Club, obviously, has their own, and each scouting group might also have their own code for when they’re not cooperating, but idk. We’ll figure that out when/if we get there.  
> For the second cipher I used a Polybius cipher with the key “a scout is never taken by surprise”—another scouting saying which seemed appropriate. The drop letter is the standard j. I thought about making it polyalphabetic, basically shifting the start of the array to whatever letter came next in the key, but… that would be kind of overkill for a random fanfic that isn’t even focused on cryptography. *facepalm*  
> It was fun, okay?


	5. The Blazing Might

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter way better than the last one. XD Also: Bruce does not know how to comfort someone having a panic attack. 
> 
> Anyway, specific CWs are at the bottom.

** Chapter 5: **

“What do you mean, there have been no new Night Vale immigrants since 2010?” Coulson’s voice was mild, but his interlocuter was well aware of the incredulousness behind it. She had, after all, fulfilled the requirements for her Emotional Telepathy badge, even she wasn’t actually a girl scout. “There’s a Job Fair every year!”  
The voice on the phone sighed. “No-one has heard from the Arid Sands recruitment center since November 2009.”  
“That was what, three years ago? And nobody’s done anything about it?” After a pause, Coulson grimaced. “I see your point, it is Night Vale. Still, do we know anything about what happened?” A few seconds passed before the agent interrupted the person on the phone with him. “Could you please repeat that?” Coulson’s face was shuttered. “Yes, they approached SHIELD about three months ago publicly to offer their services. I’ll make sure we know about this correlation, thank you for your help.” The smile, however slight it had been, was gone. “I’ll make sure Fury knows. What was the company called again? Strexcorp, right, right. Strex.” Coulson let out a breath. “Thank you for your help, Agent Cooper. They’re from Desert Bluffs, aren’t they? I think Cecil had an ad for them once, Strexcorp and their Smiling God. It doesn’t bode well.” The thought of Cecil felt like a punch to the gut with everything Coulson now knew: sharp, dreaded, and more painful than expected.   
Coulson had found a recording, just an hour before, from Stark’s armor. Even with only audio and visual feedback, it was unmistakably Cecil. Or at least, it was unmistakably something to do with Station Management, given the tooth-rattling buzz of static and abominable, beautiful eldritch being trapped within that fragile shell of a body which did not actually remember being Cecil. It had been quite the shock when Coulson first left Night Vale and learned that most people out here could die from something as simple as a little blood loss, or a quick jolt of electricity, or too much caffeine in their peyote, so no wonder Cecil was healing so quick. Looking at the medical records, however, his captors had been reasonably astute about that oddity of Night Vale constitutions. Unfortunately.

Coulson finished exchanging formalities and hung up on the other Night Vale native, extracting himself from the growing rage in his gut. He smoothed out his suit jacket with gently trembling hands, chin jerking up to face the world in impassive guise.   
It was time to pay a visit to SHIELD’s community bloodstone circle.

  
John felt like he’d gotten the hang of this. It was a little weird, at first, running his hands across the display and feeling words pop into his head from nothing more than a pattern of raised dots, moving a cursor along the page with one hand and feeling both cursor and page with the other. That was one of Stark’s additions, apparently, a raised triangle which moved smoothly along its surface and the different heights of raised surfaces which indicated different blocks of color on the web page. It probably wouldn’t work for displaying actual, complicated art, but that wasn’t what John was looking for. John gave a tight little smile, clicking on a link. _Night Vale Tourism Board_ , was the title. He pressed it—and the page must have flashed, because the display beneath John’s fingers jerked up and down, up and down in rigid movements. Finally, it calmed down, settling into its normal plateaus of dots.

**STREXCORP SYNERNISTS, INC**  
BECOME YOUR BEST SELF.  
_By visiting the Desert Bluffs Greater Metropolitan Area_

Some animal in John’s gut reared back in horror, sending a screeching peal of mingled rage and terror to scream through his head.   
“Sir?”  
John launched himself out of the chair. Pain lanced up his legs at the sudden movement on frail and unsteady limbs, then exploded through his rear and shoulders as he landed, catching himself on his hands.   
“Sir,” JARVIS continued, “are you alright?”   
John lay curled on the floor, fingers digging white-knuckled into the plush carpet. His breaths fled his lungs in sandpaper gasps. Strex. Something about Strex, his conscious mind supplied, Strexcorp Synernists Strexcorp synthetics strexcorps stress corps believe in a Believe in a smiling, Smiling, god believe bright believe the blinking light the smiling god believe--   
“JOHN!” JARVIS must have sounded the alarm, because the scientist was crouched beside him, beautiful hair curling just so along his brow. Dr. Banner. That was it, his name, not Carlos, not who he should have been, who he looked like with that lab coat and… “John, John, listen to me, you’re going to be okay.” The scientist’s hands were gentle in the prisoner’s hair, sliding along the sides of his face. “You’re going to be okay, but you need to tell me what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening.”  
John stared into the void, chest arching as he choked on—nothing, there was nothing there, he just couldn’t breathe. And something, something was moving on his skin, _under_ his skin, he couldn’t stand it. John’s mouth slipped open as a despairing and utterly joyless chuckle escaped his throat. After a few more seconds, John managed a dazed, lopsided grin. “I can’t, I can’t…” he managed to mouth. Air flooded into John’s aching throat as he sucked in a breath, taking relief in the harsh, stabbing discomfort of it. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Hahaha..” the grin widened, tongue just visible in the edges of it. “Fucking Strex. I can’t, they just—” Discomfort turned to agony as something speared John through the forehead, right in the center of that terrible absence. He screamed, hands going to clutch the stitches, head falling back against the ground with a thud as his arms pulled away. Before long another pair of hands were holding him up, smaller and cooler than Doctor Banner’s, and the scientist began to pry John’s obscuring digits from the line of stitches even as they came away bloody and slick with mingled red and violet. “I can’t, I can’t,” came the frantic muttering. “No no no no no no no they _hurt_ him they HURT MY CARLOS” John was shouting now, the deluge of tears doing nothing to wash away the squirming ink uncoiling from his skin. His voice rang just as it had in Banner’s earlier encounter, like molten caramel in texture pouring fury into the air, hoarseness tempered by the sound of static and a bell so deep Banner could practically swim in it.  
The tentacles were damp, in their second waking appearance, and firm with muscle under Natasha’s hands. She still had the stun gun on her belt, practically burning a hole in her side, she was so conscious of it. And yet—John wasn’t violent, she perceived. Not yet anyway, even the inhumanly dark ichor pouring from the stitches on his forehead looked like it was more caused by… oh. The skin on either side of the stitches seemed to be… pulling apart. On its own.

Banner grasped the panicking man’s hands in each of his, the ring of emerald around his pupils betraying how little of the calm he projected was actually felt. “It’s okay, John,” he murmured, trying and failing to disguise the tension in his voice. “Try and talk me through what you’re thinking, alright? I can’t help if I don’t know what’ happening.”

Two strands of solid black wrested themselves from John’s emaciated wrists to clench the scientist’s forearms, leaving a larger probe to slither about his neck. Lavender slime was left in its wake, already begin to dry on Banner’s shirt. Natasha winced. That can’t have been comforting. Even less comforting, however, were the boneless ebony limbs slipping en masse from what appeared to be a literal rift in John’s back gaping void open along where his spine normally protruded.   
“THEY HURT _MY CARLOS!”_ John—or rather, the unfamiliar eldritch creature John had become—raged. He turned abruptly, tearing himself from the grasp of the only two Avengers currently in the Tower to stare unseeing between them, his eyes glowing pits of infinite white. The contrast with the pure black dripping from the stitches in his forehead was absolute, the tentacles still unraveling themselves from John’s skin seeming mid grey in comparison. The being hissed. “They hurt. My Carlos, MY PRECIOUS CARLOS,” the creature howled, “and they TORE OUT MY _EYE_ , tore out the eye of Night Vale when they sewed it shut,” he swayed, “they silenced the VOICE of Night Vale when they ripped me OUT and brought in _Kevin_ , that disgusting beast, but they can never _silence_ the _voice_ ,” a disbelieving laugh clawed its way out of John’s throat, “they can never silence it, we will always be there, we have to be, the beating heart, the breathing lungs. Their Smiling God can never hear us for it does not listen, and when the time comes to strike that final blow,” his voice had fallen to a devout whisper as he swayed, “I will be there, I will, and I will _destroy them.”_ The smile faded. “There will be no mercy.”   
Swaying gently from side to side, seconds passed in utter silence. With a final whisper, the being fell.

Within seconds, the softly waving tentacles were once more petrified in layers of ink, the violet slime on the man’s skin and dripping down Bruce’s collar the only indication that they had ever been. But his forehead, Natasha couldn’t stop looking at John’s forehead. As she watched, even as the eldritch being fell to sprawl unconscious on the ground, something under the stitches… twitched. It had stilled briefly when John spoke, a round bump straining the membrane of skin and thread which confined it until he fell, but now the dark ichor still poured from the tiny openings more than ever until the very skin stretched over the empty socket seemed to beat at the air like a monkey in a bag. There was a pause.   
“Sewed it shut,” Banner stammered into the silence. “John said they, whoever ‘they’ is, sewed his eye shut.” His own eyes were fixed on the shuddering void in John’s forehead.   
“It’s in the middle of his forehead.” Ah, yes, he could always count on Nat to be the voice of reason.  
“Eye. He said eye, not eyes. What if his other two were already broken?”   
Nat ripped her gaze from the fallen figure on the floor to glare up at Banner. “Humans don’t have three eyes, Bruce.”  
The scientist let out a humorless little laugh. “He’s not human.” He shook his head slowly, disbelievingly. “I have to take those out. I have to take those stitches out, there’s something behind them.”  
“Something creepy, monstrous, and violent.” Nat deadpanned. “Yes, let’s absolutely let it out, Bruce have you thought about this _at all_?”  
“Yes! I have!” Banner turned to face the SHIELD agent where she knelt. Was he… This can’t be new, Natasha thought, Bruce doesn’t anger that easily. But now? Face twisted, eyes damp, he yelled, barely managing to keep the Hulk confined as he did. “I have thought about this, the same thing happened last time I saw him get upset! What we’re seeing, I mean the fainting and the whatever it is in his forehead, Nat, that _can’t_ be right. The x-ray said nothing was there, but evidently there’s something in that hole, and if that something is alive I can guarantee you it’s been hurting John.” He straightened his lab coat with nervous fingers. “Maybe that’s why there’s this whole tentacles, eldritch something-or-other deal going on whenever John’s upset. Maybe he can control it normally. Maybe it’s like Tony said, and this is new, and he just doesn’t know how. Either way, the answer lies in that I have to find out.”  
Natasha sighed. “Fine. But just in case, I’m sorry, but we have to remand him to SHIELD custody.”  
Bruce tilted his head. “Why?”  
“He practically managed to strangle you back there!” she exclaimed. “Sure, he didn’t do it yet, but he certainly could have. We don’t know what sort of motivation drives this… thing. For all we know, _it_ is going to object to having those stitches removed.”  
“He—”  
“Even if he doesn’t mean harm to you, personally!” the agent interrupted. “Even if he doesn’t mean harm to you personally, he might not even know where he is, John might not even be in control, you don’t know what could happen.” A scowl traced itself along her face. “I know you feel bad for this guy, and I don’t like it either, but I can’t let that get in the way of the safety of New York. Because honestly? He, or rather the eldritch abomination, could do some serious damage before we manage to take it down.”   
Bruce let out the breath he had prepared. “Fine.” He adjusted his glasses, staring a hole in the wall on his far side. “Fine, just don’t… Just keep an eye on him, okay? I can’t let SHIELD...”  
“I won’t let them repeat what they did for you and Blonsky.”

Unnoticed by those in the room as they hauled the stranger’s body off the floor, the screaming violet eye nestled in the top left corner of the web page—  
blinked.

Tony was predictably apoplectic that his prisoner—his guest, rather, as he insisted—had been moved.   
Banner tried to apologize, tried to explain that Natasha had a point, that John might react badly when Bruce took out the stitches, but his heart wasn’t in it. He still had to spend an hour staring at the wall after that conversation, burying his head in sensation until the Other Guy wasn’t quite so near to the surface. Fuck. Bruce didn’t want John in SHIELD’s hands either, not for so much as a second, not with the attitude they seemed to embrace toward uncontrolled alter egos. A bitter taste surfaced in his mouth. Maybe he was deluding himself, he thought. Maybe John wasn’t like Bruce in that respect, maybe John really was possessed, or controlled, or… something. Or maybe, niggled that hopeful voice in his brain, maybe John was just… John, in another form and with fewer inhibitions but nevertheless John. A sigh escaped his mouth.  
Bruce needed to think.   
On the one hand, SHIELD was responsible for the Avengers, and the Avengers saved the Earth. Repeatedly. And SHIELD brought the Avengers in to chase down HYDRA, SHIELD was willing to shelter this guy…   
But on the other? Banner hardly needed so much as a second to come up with a list of SHIELD’s failures. They sent General Ross after him, they made Blonsky into the Abomination, they killed hundreds of relative innocents with every HYDRA base they destroyed—why, Bruce thought, would they treat John any different?   
His fingernails dug into his scalp, sending tingles of pain to clear his mind. Fuck. Bruce laughed, a sharp grin bared to the world. God. The sounds of laughter dripped from his lips to fall silent by the time they hit the floor. God, he hated this. 

~~~

Deep underground, in two very different bunkers embedded beneath the sands of an unremarkably infinite desert, a small pink light began to blink. Gently it flashed, on and off like the urgent whisperings of a firefly, a sanguine star on the face of a computer monitor.   
In one bunker, a balaclava-clad figure stared to see the message affixed beneath the light.

In the other—the only stirring was that of a faceless old woman as she organized the piles of clutter strewn about the house above, and the creaking of wind through an open streetside door as it hung from broken hinges.

**UNAUTHORIZED SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY DETECTED**  
83.784% CERTAINTY  
ATTENTION REQUIRED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Eldritch horror (you really should be used to that by now), tentacles, reference to mind control, plans for dubcon body modification/medical procedures, PTSD, panic attacks


	6. The Singing Blight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... My outline for this story just doubled in length :/  
> On the one hand, this makes me pretty nervous, because I don't know that I have the stamina for something this long and also my much-dwindled buffer is now down to a few bare chapters. On the other hand, I get to write more of this au sooner! Hooray! Wish me luck?
> 
> CWs: drug use, trance, amnesia as usual, unhealthy attitudes about surgery

The room was dry, more brightly lit than one might expect, with a ring of cushions on the floor. A set of stones traced a circle about its center, dark steely grey with flecks and veins of running red, pulsing with shadows so bright they resembled the brightest sunlight. On one side of the circle, rocking and shaking in devout convulsions knelt a man pale in face and brown of hair. His hands trembled as he pressed them to the ground. Sweat pooled at the base of his neck. From his mouth came a liquid stream of words, rhythmic, atonal, rising and falling in no discernable pattern. It had been far too long since the man last engaged in an all-night chant like this one—but then, he hadn’t meant for this to be an all-night chant. It wasn’t usually nearly this difficult to tune in to Night Vale’s radio broadcasts.  
Phil Coulson shuddered as inhospitable energies crackled through his spine, forced back into the ground by way of the bloodstones. Mouth gaping around the words of the chant as he wound the ritual down, he swung forward and back with the turn of syllables, forward and back, head mere inches from the ground, forward and back…  
A flash of light, a flicker of darkness--  
And Coulson slid to the ground, clothes sticking to his skin, sweaty cheek pressed to the floor. A gasp fluttered from his lips. Silence.  
It wasn’t the comforting sort of silence which filled the room, the silence of bleak absence. Rather, this silence was one of contrasts, filled still with the rustling of tiny creatures, the whispers of otherworldly monsters from where they lurked in the corners of the room. The mutterings of local monsters, hidden under the multitudinous faces of humanity. The slithering sound of cloth on wood echoed throughout, as a man, no, a Boy Scout stumbled to his feet in a suit ill befitting the visceral terror of his occupation. His job with SHIELD only rarely had that particular note of horrifying familiarity which permeated Night Vale, his beautiful Night Vale, but… well. You could never forget the horrors entirely. Coulson’s breath puffed out hazy in the chill of the room, hands trembling. His eyes were narrowed to slits, lids shivering like a cat in the sun. Ridiculous and fearful his childhood home may be, the thought arose in Coulson’s mind, but it was beautiful besides, and sweet like poison coursing through his veins, sugar and coffee and broiling-bright delirium. Finally he spoke into the living quiet, voice harsh and no longer saturated by musical conviction. “Desert Bluffs Greater Metropolitan Area.” Coulson gave a small, bitter smile. “Hah. No wonder they needed to get Cecil out of the way.”  
Steps unsteady, the agent limped out of SHIELD’s community bloodstone circle and into the lobby outside it. His first stop was the drinking fountain, long since enchanted to spurt a refreshing mixture of peyote mescaline and cold black coffee in place of water, and next the couch where he could wait off the initial effects of said mixture. Lulled by the comfort of caffeine bubbling through his blood and the gentle colors wavering in the edges of his vision, Agent Coulson dozed.  

~~~

When John woke, he was once again somewhere unfamiliar. A cushioned surface yielded beneath him, heat prickling across the skin of his face. He was not alone, John’s hearing informed him, someone waited across from the bed, on a chair? Yes, John thought, a chair, he could hear it creak as its occupant shifted. Surroundings ascertained, he opened his eyes, sliding back in his bed.  
“Hey.”  
Tony? John smiled faintly. “Hello.”  He wet his lips, back tense, then shoved himself gingerly into a seated position, passing the weight from his elbows to the palms of hands as he did. The smile vanished. “Where am I?” Some dark apprehension sparkled in his gut.  
Mr. Stark gave a sigh. “About that.” The sound as he leaned forward wasn’t right, it wasn’t cloth it—oh.  
“You’re wearing armor.”  
Mr. Stark froze. At last he answered. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, I’m wearing my armor. Bruce and Nat called someone, had you transferred over here, it’s a, it’s a SHIELD facility. You’re here for your own… protection,” the man finally managed to choke out. “Your protection. They don’t want you to leave.”  
Was there something wrong with that? John furrowed his brow. From what he understood, SHIELD was certainly shady, but really they were just another secret police organization, and the secret police, John knew, the phrase came right to mind as if it were the only thing he’d ever known, the secret police were to be trusted. There for our protection, they are there for our protection. Something rang hollow about that, certainly, but he couldn’t pinpoint quite what.  
“John?”  
He jumped. “Y—yes, Mr. Stark? I’m, I’m sorry. I was thinking.”  
“You’re fine, John.” As always, the man’s voice was taut with tension, softened by a sort of veil as if he were trying to soothe a wild animal out of a panic. “I just asked, do you remember anything about—well, about what you were doing when you fell asleep, before you woke up just now?”  
John bit his lip. He didn’t want to think about it, something shied away from that memory, but it was, it was there. But—he shouldn’t lie. Not to Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark who had taken care of him. “I remember.”  
Mr. Stark chuckled. “Cool, but can you tell me what you remember? Some shit kinda went down, and I for one am super curious.”  
John huffed in irritation. “JARVIS said I could borrow the braille reader you made?” He tilted his head. “So I was looking stuff up, on the internet. I found what I was looking for, or what I thought I was looking for, and…” John’s mouth twisted. “Well,” his voice deepened as he continued, “I suppose it found me too.”  
“What happened?”  
There was another long pause. When John finally answered, his hands were clenched on the coverlet of the bed, and every hint of hoarseness was gone from his voice as he stared unseeing at the floor. “Strex.” It was almost a growl. “I found the tourism board website of a place called Night Vale, and on the top was a banner for ‘Desert Bluffs Greater Metropolitan Area’—hah!” John could hardly stand to say the words, and it showed in his voice. “Night Vale,” he snarled, “its _name_ is _Night Vale._ But this website did not belong to Night Vale,” every syllable, every letter was pronounced with textbook precision and a rage which permeated it all like a looming wildfire, a signal of imminent and indiscriminate demise. “Because underneath the banner was this—this phrase…” John trailed off. When he resumed speaking, a certain mingled dread and fear trembled beneath his sentences. “Advertising for Strex.”  
“Strex?” Mr. Stark prodded.  
The reply was rattled off with robotic ease. “Strexcorp Synernists, Inc., Work Harder, Believe in a Smiling God, Become your Better Self, Strex. It is everything.” A bitter laugh. “I remember the slogans, even if they weren’t all on the website. And I left them,” he cried, “not the company that is, I’m glad to have left them if I did, but the town… Beams,” the tremor rose from his white-knuckled hands up through his very shoulders as Night Vale, his beautiful, helpless, forgotten Night Vale came to mind. “I left the town to its own devices.” John’s head fell to be buried in his hands. “Tamika, and Carlos, and even _Steve,_ the loathsome man, if they’re still alive…”  
“Damn.” Stark still clinked in his armor. “Do you… remember who these people are?”  
Yes. “No,” he gasped. “No, I don’t know, I know Carlos was—is, he’s alright still, he has to be alright, I am _holding_ the _trophy_ —he’s a scientist, he has the most magnificent hair and I love him with every fiber of my being. And Steve is a PTA parent, my… relation of some kind, I think, I always found him _so annoying”_ but he was so helpless sometimes, so reckless, he could never avoid helping the poor man when the Sheriff’s secret police dropped him drugged and injured out in the desert, never keep from buying Janice’s girl scout cookies, “and Tamika—” John’s voice cut off. “an image comes to mind, a little black girl with her hair in neat dreadlocks kept close to her head, a book in her back pocket, a shrunken head on her belt. She’s, she was, she was wonderful, she was without fear, and I _admired_ her so much.” He paused.  
“She was a fifth grader, last I saw,” John added. “Is a fifth grader. I don’t know. I must have remembered something, from whatever happened after I saw that web page. Something beyond the absolute gut-wrenching panic and terror when I caught sight of the Strexcorp logo, that is, because whenever I think of Tamika now I see her covered in blood and viscera, striding triumphantly out of the library with a librarian’s head in hand.” The smile on John’s face was unsuited to such a grisly topic. “I see her standing in the middle of town as yellow helicopters descend, I see her building a bloodstone circle in the center of the Ralph’s, I see Tamika and Tamika Flynn alone, _she_ is the most competent resistance Night Vale has to offer.” John sobered. “I know this, and I don’t know how. I don’t know who she is, or precisely what she’s resisting. I don’t know Steve, except the name and description, or his daughter Janice, or—” John blinked, horror sinking leaden in his stomach. “I don’t even know who Carlos is.”  
It took Tony a moment to digest this. “Blood, shrunken heads, and—you know what, okay.” He leaned back against the wall. “Okay. Why were you looking this up again?”  
“To find out who I am. Or whatever other information it was which Agent Coulson so unsubtly hinted at when he interviewed me.”  
“Unsubtly—what? Coulson was, Coulson interviewed you? Jarvis, can you pull that up for me? Of course you can’t, it’s Coulson, he’s a paranoid ass. Fuck.” He took a breath. “Alright, so what did he say?”  
John’s eyes narrowed. “First and most obviously he asked if I remembered him, then sounded surprised when I answered out loud—he tapped the answer out in Morse code, or something, I don’t know.”  
“And you understood it?” There was a fascinated tone to Stark’s voice.  
“Of course! Everybody learns Morse code and a few common ciphers in school, it really isn’t that difficult.” Tony did not appear to find this nearly so obvious as John did. “After that, Coulson asked in some sort of substitution cipher if I was undercover, and again seemed taken aback by my response. I must admit that by then I had become quite agitated. He left soon after. On his way out, however, Agent Coulson mentioned something in a much better code, though I couldn’t exactly name which one—he said a name.” The name still didn’t ring any bells, but in a rather more sinister way than it had before. John was positive something was up about that. “I think he believed it was my name, or the name of someone important to me that I have simply not yet remembered.” After a moment, John gave up that final piece of information, for whatever it was worth. “Cecil Palmer. He gave me the name Cecil Palmer.”

  
  
“Do you think Coulson had something to do with whatever happened to John?” Bruce asked when Tony Stark emerged, twiddling a pen between his fingers.  
“So you knew about that.”  
“John did mention the agent early in his freakout episode. Panic attack,” the scientist amended. “And Nat told me John was asking about him a while ago, while he was still in a wheelchair. Said that he seemed familiar.”  
Tony ran a hand through his hair, freeing it from the gold and vermillion helmet which had encased it. “I really don’t know. He’s remembering some stuff now, but he didn’t say anything to me about a past with Coulson. Just that the man was asking some really weird questions. Apparently Coulson thought John was this guy called… what was it? Cecil, Cecil Palmer.”  
Bruce winced. “Tell me you’re looking into that.”  
“I plan to.” Tony nodded. “Either way, John’s awake now.”  
The scientist let out a sigh. “I’ll go talk to him. Just… stand by, please, his conversations with me never seem to end well.” Absentmindedly combing his hair with one hand, Bruce placed his pen neatly in the pocket of his lab coat, and went to speak to his patient.

 

John was… unsurprised, to say the least, when Bruce announced his plan to open up the stitches on his forehead. Okay, Bruce thought, it wasn’t so much a plan as a desperate hope to figure out what the hell John even was, but nevertheless, at least he was going to try _something_. John still didn’t look particularly happy about the idea—his scarred brown face was paler than usual and his shoulders were seriously tense. Then again, Bruce admitted, that might just be because he was remembering things from what probably hadn’t been a particularly pleasant existence and was stuck, blind as ever, in an unfamiliar room which he wouldn’t be allowed to leave. That would also be reasonable.  
“I don’t want to know.”  
Bruce jumped at John’s words. Had he really been that lost in thought? “I—I’m sorry, I completely missed what you said, John. Could you please repeat that?”  
The reply was almost a whisper. “I don’t want to know what’s behind those stitches.” Impeccably enunciated, John’s words rose faintly in volume even though his body language seemed to contradict their meaning with every fiber. “I don’t, I just want you to take it out, so I can, so I can _think_. And breathe, and not have it _stabbing me_ every time I—every time I get upset.”  
The scientist bit his lip. That… didn’t sound very healthy. “I’ll do my best.”  
John closed his eyes. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: peyote


	7. The Hidden Wight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'm progressing relatively fast so far. That's good. I'm not quite up to my former buffer, but I've at least got something? I'll try and keep the every two weeks-ish schedule. 
> 
> CWs: Surgery, references to nonconsenual bodymod

The surgery went quickly.  
  
Well, it wasn’t really a surgery, otherwise Bruce would have needed some actual _medical_ doctors there to help. For once, he was glad the team so often just ignored his protests that he wasn’t that kind of doctor—it meant he didn’t have to trust SHIELD to tear out the stitches holding John’s forehead closed, and to do only that. Bruce had transferred his patient into an operation room nestled within the bunker where John was held, and washed his hands. He injected the man with an anesthetic, something to make him sleep—if John didn’t want to know what lurked beneath his forehead, he wouldn’t have to. Not if Bruce could just take whatever it was out then and there. He cut the stitches easily once John was asleep.  
Apparently while John himself was lost in slumber, whatever waited in his forehead slept as well, judging by the way it finally stilled. Bruce snipped the string knitting the man’s scarred skin together, and removed it with a series of tugs, soft at first, but stronger against the resistance of flesh long since grown around it. Piece by piece, he laid it aside. His fingers filled with delicate care, Bruce spread the flaps of skin to peer down at the hole in the bone, almost two inches wide.  
  
A bullet hole? No, he thought, what kind of bullet was that wide? And why would the skin on either side of the hole be so abundant, as if someone pried the flesh and bone from underneath that skin without making more than a slit? Had they been trying to minimize scarring? If they did, it hadn’t worked, given the thick white lines which left a raised opaque matrix all around it. Pulling a small flashlight from the table, Bruce took a closer look. Something black shined at the bottom of the hole, resting against what must be the edge of John’s brain. He let out a breath.  
The glistening darkness lunged, launched in mere seconds from stillness to a creature the size of Bruce’s palm sending slimy probes out of the hole to slap against the scars. Bruce jerked back. What the hell was that? It crawled out in lightning jerks, a featureless octopus of ink.  
Bruce stepped back, carefully keeping his breathing even. “Hey there,” he cooed. “Are you the one who… takes care of John when he gets upset?” The thing certainly looked like the home of some eldritch parasite, so maybe that was it.  
There was no response from the tiny creature. Instead it spread itself across the hole in thick membrane, leaving purple trails in the wake of where its tentacles flailed. It trembled there for a moment, then sent translucent violet runners beneath the flaps of loose skin, lifting them up from John’s forehead as purple ichor bubbled through the dirty holes where thread was once lodged. The tentacles flexed—and the flaps of skin closed.  
Bruce felt his muscles relax.  
Weird, he thought. The creature had previously always been trying to part the flaps of skin, judging by how it had oozed from the stitches. And it had been the creature dripping out and trying to escape, he realized, not blood or slime like they’d thought.  
All of a sudden, something ballooned beneath the skin. The flaps parted slowly, leaving mucus in their tracks and then—It wasn’t an eye. That would have been weird, of course, but given the manifold purple eye theme of John’s whole eldritch manifestation, it wouldn’t have been terribly surprising. Or at least, it wasn’t really an eye, but a shiny purple sphere. A pale lilac crescent had traced itself along the surface, and the whole orb was coated by faint milky trails. As Bruce watched, coarse black hairs wriggled from the edges of the skin to form eyelashes around the shining purple ball. The creature blinked.

~~~

Tony was in his lab when it happened. Just as he finally managed to perfect the curve along the edge of a plate on his latest model of experimental armor, eyes on his screen to better see what he was doing in the zoomed-in video from U’s camera, a new window flickered briefly open in the display.  
“Fuck!” Tony turned off his cutter immediately. Hopefully he hadn’t ruined the piece, because if he had… The window flickered into view again, black and empty. This time it stayed, starting to show a bright orange and yellow page—but before the page could finish loading, it was eclipsed by a miasma of dark purple, marked with the sigil of a paler violet eye holding a crescent moon. A series of beeps issued from JARVIS’s speakers.  
“JARVIS?” Tony shouted.  
“I seem to have partially lost control of my more vocal subsystems,” the AI remarked when the beeps finally stopped. “Apologies, master Stark. I am taking care to record the instance in order to fix whatever error allowed it to happen.”  
“What the hell was that?”  
JARVIS gave a little hum before answering. “I do believe it to be some form of heavily-encrypted Morse code.”  
Tony stared at the light fixture in the ceiling where JARVIS’ camera was. “Who the _hell_ would send Morse code, through a computer virus, to me?”  
JARVIS’ reply, while predictable, was still disappointing. “Possibly someone who wants to kill you, sir.”  
A groan of frustration issued from the inventor before he answered.  “Of course it is. God knows, nobody can _help_ the guy trying to save the world, that makes it too easy. What did I even _do_ this time?” he sighed. “Fine. Don’t let SHIELD see this unless you have to, I want to know who sent it before they do. Start decrypting, and let me know when you have an answer, even if I’m in the middle of something. What is the message, where did it come from, and what was that orange-and-yellow eye-searing mess of a page that popped up first.”  
“Understood.”  
Tony tried to go back to his work on the armor. Unfortunately, it seemed his brain had other plans—after a few minutes of watching his hands drift as he tried to sand a curve of the shoulder plate, Tony gave up, flipping the mask off his face onto the table. A sigh. “How’s that decryption going, JARVIS?”  
The AI answered after a slight, uncharacteristic pause. “I… I am having some difficulty, sir. I have ruled out simple substitution ciphers or Caesar ciphers, the character distribution is unsuitable for codes of that nature. I have ruled out Playfair ciphers for the same reason. The distribution is too wide with too frequent occurrences of unusual letters to be likely to be a Vergeniere or Jefferson cipher, either, though there’s about a 40% chance that this second assessment is incorrect.”  
“That’s a ridiculously huge chance of error, JARVIS. What’s going on?” Tony glanced up at the camera again. “You’re never this unsure with something this simple.”  
A sort of sighing sound left the speakers. “Every time I repeat the recording, master Stark, thinking I have the sequence narrowed down, I hear something different. The character frequency distribution reliably does not match a substitution cipher, and does not usually match a likely candidate for the Vergenière or Jefferson ciphers, but even if the message were constant that hypothesis would be uncertain. On the other hand, however, a normal public key encryption seems unlikely due to its source, hence why I began investigating older methods of encryption.”  
“Every time?”  
“Every time, sir,” JARVIS confirmed.  
“That's weird. Lemme see.”

~~~

The odd creature—John, Bruce insisted to himself, it wasn’t as if the mysterious thing stuck in his forehead made him a monster— had yet to wake from anesthesia. Or rather, the anesthesia left his system hours ago, but he was still unconscious for all intents and purposes, his eyes left gaping at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open. The purple eye, too, was open, staring blankly up with the occasional blink of translucent mucus passing over its surface in a sort of transparent lid. John was… catatonic, Bruce supposed from his vantage point in the adjacent observation room. In a trance? He really wasn’t sure. On the one hand John was breathing, his heartbeat seemed normal, and his brain activity seemed like that of a waking person (and then some) when he stuck John’s immobile corpse in an MRI to check. But he wouldn’t respond to being touched, or shaken, or when Bruce blared the loudest phone alarm he could throughout the room. Nothing. What’s more, the man’s tattooed tentacles had woken up shortly after the anesthesia wore off and were still thrashing around beneath their film of human skin as they only seemed to do when John was asleep or upset. Bruce bit his lip.  
Even waking up and wrecking things would be better than this, especially since there wasn’t much John could destroy in that little cell, not now that Bruce and his SHIELD-granted assistants were safely dispersed or in the observation room.  
The silence which loomed instead was just… eerie.

  
The being woke. Something was different, it knew, but did not think. Something was… better. Its eyes flicked open, revealing only the endless and all-devouring void, muffling its every thought in infinite dread. It was surrounded by the hum of electrical circuits running through walls that seemed… nearer than they should be. The being did not twitch. There was a pressure on its forehead—there, there, that was it! Different. Better, it was back. A feeling of frozen pleasure permeated the being’s flesh. It was back. Breath easing from its throat, the being braced itself for movement— _NONONONONONONONONONONONO_ , static raged from the darkness, filling every corner of its pulsing body. _No, no, no, no, wrong, bad, nO DON’T THINK ABOUT IT STOP STOP LEAVE GO AWAY GO, Away, away, go away, don’t, I don’t want to know—_ yet despite his protests, in rushed the invasion of staticc, all sharp edges and easy smiles, lullabies and velvet and the soft stir of a single voice like sweetened cinnamon and those words which echoed absent through the cosmos, goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight, the being repeated in thoughts like the searing flash of angel wings, it couldn’t _stop_ thinking those cursed words and, and—and with that phrase, with that phrase came memory, caught in the tangled clutches of some eldritch horror; Station Management, came the belated thought as echoes spread once more throughout the being’s body.  
These memories, though, they weren’t everything. The emotions seemed to have dissolved from them, and entire patches of time shone blank against the cinema of the being’s mind, but it was… something. Lot 37, sold to someone who didn’t own it—hah. The being knew better now, lot 37 was sold to one who _did_ own it, sold to those abominations which ruled… Night Vale. The name rang like bells in its mind as the being smiled. _Night Vale_. Home.  
No! A shock rippled through the being’s mind as it realized. No, nostalgia was not the right emotion for home, not now. Rage was infinitely better suited, oh, it remembered that much. It _remembered_ that much. A smiling god, the Smiling God which brought utter terror to its very heart, that Smiling God was ruin, and in the very gutters of Night Vale it _stank.  
_ “A smiling god?”  
John snapped to attention where he lay. “What?” That must be the scientist’s voice, he thought. Dr. Banner. Why couldn’t he hear the doctor’s movements?  
“You whispered something about a smiling god, just now.” Banner sounded flustered, ever so slightly, as if he hadn’t expected a response. “What about it?”  
John’s head tilted just an inch or so to the right, lips parting about a centimeter. “The Smiling God destroyed us.”  
A pause. “E- excuse me?”  
“What did you do to my head?” The question was almost offhand in tone, though filled within John’s head with a need to know so intense it could practically magnify the sunlight into flame. “It doesn’t hurt. Anymore.”  
Banner finally responded. “I thought you didn’t want to know.” At John’s twitch, he continued hurriedly. “I took the stitches out, and there was something inside that jumped out at me, and kind of set itself over the hole. It’s closed now. The… the creature, not the hole. I mean, the hole is closed too,” he stammered, “but the creature’s eye thing was open just a minute ago, it only closed when you moved.”  
John breathed out slowly, evenly. “I want it out.” A loud huff in the speakers generating the sound signaled Banner’s breath. He was in another room from John, it seemed, whether out of fear or simple caution. “You don’t understand, it isn’t part of me, I never asked for it even the first time, and _I want it out._ ”  
“I’m sorry, John,” the scientist began.  
“Take. It. OUT! I DON’T WANT IT IN MY BODY, I don’t want it in my brain,” the terror was apparent in John’s voice, even if Banner didn’t know what it was about, “and I don’t want it _showing me what happened,_ and what it thinks I am, I don’t want to know, I don’t…” A sob tore through the air like sandpaper. “I don’t want it.”  
“I’m sorry.” Banner repeated uselessly. “I can’t take it out. They tried, your previous captors, I can see the scars, and it didn’t work.” He bit his lip. “Nothing I do will be better, John, and if nothing else, it’ll be dangerous as all get out because—”  
“I DON’T CARE IF IT’S DANGEROUS!” John snarled, violet eyes snapping open across his skin on their ebon tentacles. “It isn’t part of me and it’s trying to tell me—it’s telling me things I _do not want to know_ , and I cannot destroy it, so _take it out_. Make it leave. Sew the hole back up again. Make it shut up, but by the very beams, hell, by Strexcorp’s vile Smiling God just take it out!”  
Natasha was wrong, Bruce realized too late. The observation room really, _really_ wasn’t isolated enough to protect him from John’s confused and fearful wrath. Not when he was in this state. The window shattered—the rush of static flooded the observation room. Glistening ropes of black gripped the empty frame, blooming from every inch of John’s skin and leaving lilac trails in their wake as they pulsed and blurred in colored bursts. A sickening slapping sound pierced the ring echoing from John’s room amidst the chaos as bright black light invaded the observation room, dripping from the tendrils of pure darkness in solid form. Bruce staggered back, the last hint of his control dissipating beneath choking panic— the last thing Bruce remembered before the Hulk roared to life was a vague sense of wonderment at how brightly the buzz of sound reverberated in his bones.


	8. The Raging Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! 
> 
> CWs: Drug use, PTSD, trance, eldritch horror as always

Tension loomed above the table, entirely at home in the terse silence. More specifically, Director Nick Fury loomed above the table, his hands pressed to its surface, his face stony as he glared at the assembled company.   
“To be fair—” Tony started to protest,  
“I don’t give a flying fuck about fair, Mr. Stark.” Fury raised his head to rake his gaze across the table. “What I do care about is making sure you all know _exactly_ why you’re here.” He paused. Stark’s expression was still set in a scowl, while Romanov looked as impassive as ever, lounging in her chair. Banner hunched over his section of table, fingers curled into fists and hair a disheveled mess from the recent transformation.   
Finally, Fury continued. “Stark. A prisoner found in a HYDRA facility must be assumed to be extremely dangerous. If I allow you to keep one under your surveillance, it is because I _expect_ you to _surveil_ it. Not coddle it, not give it free access to whatever means of communication it sees fit by means of the completely uncensored internet, and _damn well_ not allow other people to move your prisoner without your knowledge. The fact that in this particular case your prisoner was relocated by SHIELD employees and your own compatriots is irrelevant, because for all you know, it could have been, say, _HYDRA_ who relocated the prisoner.”  
Tony’s eyes narrowed, but he bit his tongue.   
The director’s baleful eye turned to Bruce. “Dr. Banner, while your commitment to duty and self-sufficiency is obvious, you are not a medical doctor. You are also not a psychiatrist, and most importantly, _you_ are not the authority on SHIELD’s prisoners of war. That would be me.”  
“We _never_ have actual medical doctors, Director, not when we’re in the field,” Banner protested, hands flat against the table. “Everybody just kind of assumes that I—”   
“ _You are not required to buy into that assumption._ ” Fury leaned forward. “In the field, yes, you have some limited medical knowledge and are more self-sufficient in a combat situation than almost all of our medical specialists. At home? You need to learn to hand things to the experts. Furthermore, _especially_ since you are not a medical doctor, any of your amateur attempts at surgery will have enormous effects on the prisoner. _My_ prisoner. If you are going to attempt a medical intervention, you know perfectly damned well that _I_ need to be informed. _I_ need to give you permission, because it is _my_ prisoner. That is how our organization works.  
“And if the prisoner shows obvious signs of mental instability,” the director enunciated, “The _obvious_ thing you are _required_ to do, is report this occurrence to SHIELD. That goes for all of you.” At last he turned to Nat, backing off the table a bit with a sigh. “Agent Romanov, you should have known better. You were not obligated to submit reports, given that you were not the custodian of this prisoner, but you should have known Stark would not file his without interference. But just as fucking importantly, the prisoner _did not need to be moved._ If any of you had filed reports to Agent Coulson as required, you would have known this. Excepting the operation, which I absolutely do _not_ approve of, nothing had changed. Yes, the prisoner freaked out. This was entirely sensible and expected of him, and nothing was damaged. He was supposedly under supervision by some of the most combat-capable people on the planet, even if they weren’t actually _keeping an eye on him_ ,” Fury growled. “He was not a threat, and was becoming less of one. Now, because of this operation and because you moved him to a tiny goddamned cell in SHIELD custody, he has become immensely more of a threat,” the Director’s glare sharpened as he came to a conclusion. “You made. The wrong. Call.”  
Natasha was the only one to meet his eye. “With all due respect, Director, I do not believe Mr. John Doe was becoming less of a threat.” When Fury cocked an eyebrow, she continued. “I understand Agent Coulson has been submitting reports, apparently focused as much on our ability to take care of a prisoner to your satisfaction as on the prisoner himself?”  
Fury didn’t even blink. “Correct.”  
“Immediately before we decided to transfer the prisoner into direct SHIELD custody,” Natasha continued, shoulders tilting forward with a frown, “Mr. John Doe had a particularly intense hallucinatory episode. Dr. Banner and myself were both present. He both changed into his other shape, as he had not done since his extraction, and acted aggressively toward the both of us. I do not believe he was entirely in control of his actions, but the fact remains that Stark Tower is also the workplace of several hundred civilians and any eldritch attack on Mr. Doe’s part could easily prove deadly to them.” Natasha looked briefly down at the table in hesitation. “Furthermore, I have reason to believe that Agent Coulson may be involved with whatever happened to the prisoner before we extracted him.”  
Silence.  
“Do any of the rest of you have evidence of this?” Fury’s voice was calm, so controlled it was almost entirely free of inflection.  
“Sam Wilson was with me at the time. John claimed he remembered Agent Coulson from before.” Nat tilted her head. “He didn’t remember anything specific, but nevertheless, it’s pretty suspicious. John has no reason ever to have met Agent Coulson before.”  
Bruce gave a little sigh before answering himself. “John mentioned him while having a panic attack? Tony, there was something—”  
“Coulson had a meeting with him.” The words seemed to burst from Tony’s throat. “Kept JARVIS from seeing it somehow, just temporarily left the camera spinning static, and JARVIS went to me with the gap in his records.” He tapped his finger against the table, staring at Fury. “Did you order it? Was it even on his reports?”  
The director said nothing for a few seconds. Finally he leaned back, signaling for one of the guards outside the door. “Get Agent Coulson up here for me. Avengers, you’re dismissed.”

 ~~The being~~ John woke—and his belly roiled with panic.   
Not because of the raw, puffy weight of his eyelids, or the jagged hole in his memory, or even the recent furor of oversaturated perception filling the last couple hours. No, it was—wait a minute. Was that—he was fighting! He had been fighting in a room of sterile lights, his body black mist and violet lances against an enormous humanoid with skin tinted deadly green-- John blinked ever so slowly, waiting for the thoughts to resolve. A _green_ person? Purple light? How did he… know that?   
After a few seconds, John remembered his panic. There was a weight on his wrists, a pair of handcuffs fastened tightly about the bony structure. They weren’t uncomfortable, and it wasn’t as if such laughably mundane restraints could ever stop him, but… His breath seized up. He could feel it still, the half-remembered shock of electricity, the dead load on his neck, the buzzing static filling limbs he wasn’t sure were even attached anymore. He had to get out. Out, out, out, out, John thought, the word growing ever louder and all-consuming in his mind. Get out, get out, fingers white as they dug into the mattress. Like a desert creature gasping for water, the prisoner waited. Helpless.

Later, John would never be able to measure how long he laid there shuddering with thought, incapable of movement under the suffocating panic of confinement.   
The creature had been green. John frowned. How did he know the creature he fought had been green? He could see it now, tall and humanoid and _bright shocking emerald_ , muscled like some comic book villain and with a dark mop of hair perched on his head. Was it… the scientist? Yes, he thought, the green thing had been the scientist. So really, the scientist was sometimes a lovely green giant with a temper. John chewed gently on his lip as his fingers tapped against the bed he had awoken on. For a while, it seemed, he had been capable of sight? And he already knew what the scientist looked like, and Stark come to think of it had red and gold armor and… Oh.  
Every one of those times, he thought. Every time he had gotten upset. Banner did mention that the tattoos moved when he got upset, and he had gotten a headache every time, and…   
John felt for the squirm of darkness on his brow, flinching away when his fingers encountered something warm and slimy embedded in the skin.

He closed his eyes.

And opened the EYE.

Or rather, John _tried_ to open the unfamiliar “eye” perched on his forehead. There was no change that he could notice, however, beyond the sensation of frowning and furrowing his brow. Apparently, knowing about the vile abomination in his head didn’t make inducing whatever eldritch trance it spawned any easier than it had been before. Maybe it was because he didn’t like it, John thought. Maybe he couldn’t do whatever it was because the eye monster still felt like a foreign being. But then, why would any being of such power _care_ whether its host wanted it present? He sighed.   
At least it seemed as though he would have plenty of time to figure it out.

~~~

How long did it take to find one SHIELD agent within the confines of headquarters? Nick Fury rubbed his eyes with one hand. It had been an hour already. An _entire hour_ , to find _one agent_ who was listed as being in the building and everything. How?! And now, _finally_ , Agent Coulson stood before him, hair uncharacteristically messy and face shining with sweat.   
“Agent Phil Coulson,” Fury said in clipped tones. “You’re late.”  
The man blinked, shoulders twitching to attention. “Yes, sir. I am. Sorry about that, sir.”   
“Allow me to cut to the point.” The Director growled. “You never asked for an interview with the prisoner John Doe. You never reported that you had one. And what’s more, I never authorized you to edit the surveillance tapes taken by the guards of this potentially dangerous prisoner who you illegitimately interrogated. While you took your merry time getting the hell up here, I went through Stark’s files and our own surveillance files within the Tower, and found exactly what I was just told: You and the prisoner go into a room, all cameras with line of sight on you go to static, and then you leave. What happened?” It was odd. Coulson was never one for unprofessional demeanors, but his eyes kept flicking from place to place around the room, and his stance was marked by a faint, repetitive sway.   
After several long seconds, the agent answered. “I interviewed him, sir.”  
“Do you have a conflict of interest on this case? Have you ever seen this man before, agent?”  
“There is no conflict of interest, sir. I only want what’s best for him.”  
“For him.” Fury leaned forward. “Your allegiance is to SHIELD, agent.  What happened in the interview?” Were Coulson’s pupils normally quite this dilated? The director narrowed his good eye, ever so slightly.   
Coulson’s reply was vague and punctuated by another hazy smile. “I asked him a few questions, sir. Nothing that requires prior authorization. What he remembered. Where he’s from, what the stitches are for.” The agent’s head drifted to the side for a moment before righting itself. “Little things.”  
“And did you get an answer?” Yes, something was sure as hell wrong with Coulson.  
“No, I did not.”   
At last Fury stood up. Hands flat on the table, he towered above the imposter standing at attention before him. “Tell me what you did to my agent.”   
Coulson’s smirk turned to its reptilian standard, eyes boring into the director’s for a few seconds before slipping away again. “I am still your agent. Sir.” He declared. “I just had a little taste of home.”  
“What,” Fury hissed. “did you do?”  
“I _found_ the answer I needed.” The man’s smile faded as his eyes finally made contact again. “It was not the answer I wanted. And I have not tranced in some time, have barely even used a bloodstone circle in _years,_ and the place was warded, so it took all night. My stamina is no longer what it once was,” his head tilted to the left again, “so it took the wind out of me. Nothing to worry about, sir, I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”  
“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” What the hell was a bloodstone circle? “Are you high or something?”  
Coulson gave a tiny grin, showing more emotion in that single moment than he ever had in Fury’s presence. “Exactly, sir. Don’t worry, peyote’s not illegal for religious purposes.”  
“Peyote?” Fury plunged his head into his hands. “Agent Phil Coulson, I know the regulations on peyote, a Schedule I drug, are more complicated to that, and what’s more, you are a _federal employee_ who has apparently been using said illegal drugs on the job. If I did not have the ridiculously high level of confidence in you that I do, you would be fired by now! Do you realize what kind of security risk drug use is in SHIELD employees? I know damn well you do, so there must be some sort of reasoning behind this.” Fury drew in a long breath, hands falling clenched to his sides as he glared. “Your explanation had better be fucking impeccable, agent.”  
A blink. “Explanation, sir?”  
The director glared down at his employee. “Explain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: Peyote use on the job, panic attacks/flashbacks, surprisingly light on the amnesia-related trauma
> 
> Edit: Just some minor tweaking that I forgot about last time. Mostly some bits of phrasing, but also I took out the bit about John/Cecil meditating, for the most part-- it doesn't actually make sense there with my most recent revision to the overall plot.


	9. The Motley Rite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I started this thing, I thought it was going to be like maybe eight chapters, if that. So I came up with a pretty strict format for chapter titles, as you do.  
> Current projections are for about twice that; I am *running out* of rhymes for sight. XD
> 
> I like this chapter itself though!

Tony still had some trepidation about this plan.  
Sure, he still (probably) had clearance to talk to the prisoner. Fury was pretty well occupied with questioning Coulson, at least unless he figured said favorite agent ever was totally right about everything. Tony rolled his eyes. That would be just like Coulson, to turn around and have a perfect explanation for absolutely everything.  
What Tony was a little less sure about was that Mr. Eldritch Mystery in the holding cells would be of any use in decrypting the message in the first place. Just because he could decipher some basic Morse code and substitution ciphers didn’t mean this code would make any more sense to John than it did to Tony. The thing was—that page which gave them the message had the eye on it, the same sort of weird, solid purple eye that lined John’s tentacles like giant, glistening rhinestones, and much to Tony’s annoyance, he and JARVIS still couldn’t make hide nor hair of the code. If there was a connection between John and whoever sent the message, it was… possible, especially now that the prisoner remembered a little about his prior life, that he could figure it out where an AI had failed. Tony sighed.  
His strides were confident as he moved along the bunker hallway. First step of subterfuge, Nat always claimed, was looking like you belonged—well, she’d be proud of him now. All too conscious of the way he leaned casually on the air as he presented his keycard, Tony let himself in to the room. There was one win for Tony, he still had clearance. A smirk.  
“John?” he asked.  
The black spirals stilled, and those two blind eyes snapped open. It was several seconds before the man finally answered, mustering his lips to move with difficulty. “Hello.”  
Tony ran a nervous hand through his hands, putting his back to the wall. “I have a problem.”  
“I know.”  
“You—” Tony stopped.  
“Everyone has problems,” came the deep and dreamy voice. “Everyone has problems, all the time.” John’s head turned ever so slightly. “Fedex once shipped me a box of tarantulas. That was a bit of a problem, at least until I figured out how to train them to stay in Khoshekh’s bowl while he ate them.”  
A blink. “That was… not what I was expecting you to say.” Tony’s hand scratched absently at the back of his neck. “And I admit that is definitely not a problem I’ve had. How the hell did the poison not kill you?”  
“Tarantula venom is rarely lethal. Even for someone who has not been exposed to it before.”  
“You’ve been… you know what, whatever.” Tony shook his head. “I don’t even know if you’re being serious or not, but it doesn’t really matter, that’s not what I need help with. What I need is… somebody managed to hack over JARVIS’s normal voice programs, and sent this message… thing. I’m pretty sure it’s a message, at least, I’m not sure what else it could be. Neither of us have managed to interpret it, which makes absolutely no sense because obviously I’m a genius and JARVIS is the most powerful AI on the planet right now. I need to see—er, sorry. I want to see if you can figure it out, I mean I think it has something to do with your, uh, your other self.” Tony pulled out his phone, and with a brisk swipe, a tinny series of beeps began to play. When it finished, Tony bit his lip. “There was also this web page, I think it was, that popped up when it played, but I didn’t think to bring your braille reader with me, so. Can’t exactly show it to you right now.” He’d showed up at SHIELD headquarters for the briefing/dressing-down, after all, not with the intention of visiting John in his cell.

John narrowed his eyes, fingers curled into fists beneath the blankets, leaving a soft but insistent hum to escape his lips.  
“I…” he trailed off. “I won’t tell you.”  
“What?” Tony exclaimed, ignoring the sudden flinch that resulted on the part of the prisoner. “Come on, all I’ve done is try to help you!”  
Silence.  
“Then get me out of here, help me in a way I actually asked of you,” he insisted, “and I will do the same.”  
A snort. “What do you think I am, a genie?” Tony asked incredulously. “As I was just ever so politely reminded, I don’t actually have custody of you. I can’t do shit right now!” One hand combed through his hair as he huffed. “Even this, this casually walking in to talk to you after getting a goddamned dressing-down from Fury is already not something I was supposed to do. Even if nobody actually said as much.”  
John leaned back against the covers. “Then leave.”   
“I can’t…” The superhero made a frustrated noise. “Look, man. John. I… okay. I’m perfectly on board with you not wanting to be here. SHIELD isn’t exactly a transparent organization, I mean that’s pretty obvious, and they don’t always do the right thing. Just ask Cap, or Banner. But that’s precisely why I need your help, is because if—” He took a deep breath. A cell in SHIELD custody was really not the best place for this sort of discussion. “If Fury gets his hands on this code first, I don’t know what he’ll do with it. If I get ahold of the message?” Tony ran a hand through his hair. “At least he’s less likely to be able to do anything disastrously unsavory with it.”  
“The secret police are here for our protection.”  
He blinked. “Ah… What did you say?”  
John’s deadpan expression was unchanged. “The secret police are here for our protection.”  
Tony’s mouth opened briefly, then closed. “The secret police? You mean SHIELD?” Something wasn’t right, he thought, about how John uttered those words, unfamiliar sing-song monotony in each syllable. Like… had he just… memorized that sentence, or something?  
John’s gaze slipped to the side, a faint smile tracing its way along his face. “My apologies,” he answered. “as a hidden organization, of course I have no idea that the secret police exist. The secret police are here for our protection, after all. Why would we even want to know about them? I certainly don’t.”  
“John—”  
“Don’t worry, listeners. Only one out of every six children disappears out of the middle of the night into one of the unmarked black vans driven by the Sheriff’s Secret Police, never to return. So your other children should be _just fine._ ”  
“John, what are you talking about? I something wrong? I mean obviously something’s wrong, you’re locked in a cell, but—” One out of every six—Tony frowned. Was he just making this up? Or if not, where was John even from? And the way he said that phrase, ‘the secret police are here for our protection’, it still niggled at Tony… Hell, the very fact that he said those words in seeming seriousness at all was concerning.  
“I’m fine _._ ” John’s assertion was absolute. “My mind crawls with insectile horrors which clutch my every thought in agonizing darkness. My memories,” his speech sped up as his fingers knotted themselves in sheets. “ever sparse and indistinct, are being assaulted every second by those of some other person, some _creature_ who lived a life and loved and trusted. I never lived, I never loved, I never trusted, because my memories, my _actual_ memories in which I feel emotions and care about the world began only a couple months ago when I woke in your tower delirious with panic and electric pain.”  
“You don’t sound fine,” Tony licked his lips. “Wait, did SHIELD handcuff you?” The glint of scorched and twisted metal glinted out from beneath the sheets as John shifted. But his hands—were completely unrestrained. “You took them off? How?”  
“The restraints made me panic. I did not like them,” A shrug. “It looks like Station Management agreed with me, so they helped me get them off.”  
 “Station Management.” Iron man shook his head faintly. “What the hell is that?”  
John’s hand rose shakily to point one gnarled brown finger at the violet orb in his head, shielded for the moment by wrinkled eyelids. “Them.”  A tentacle twined about his wrist with serpentine smoothness as John closed his eyes, brow furrowing in concentration. He gave a little gasp as the skin stretched over his forehead twitched. “They are Station Management, and I am theirs.”

~~~

Phil was already waiting when Tony Stark turned the corner toward the elevators. Not because the agent predicted this, really, his foresight had gotten very lax since he left Night Vale and the Boy Scouts. And he honestly didn’t think Stark had the carelessness or the bravery to try talking to a prisoner he’d just gotten a major talking-to over. Yet here the inventor was, strolling past as bold as brass from the wing of medium-security holding cells. Phil frowned. He didn’t have access to the surveillance records here, unfortunately. And Stark might have been doing something else, something that didn’t involve the prisoner. But… still. It was probably worth checking. And besides, uncovering the prisoner’s third eye probably did help with the amnesia, if it was in fact amnesia. When Tony finally slipped inside the elevator and out of sight, Coulson made his way to the prisoner’s—Cecil’s—cell.  
As soon as he opened the door, Cecil’s eyes were already focused, their faintly glowing cataracts making the agent’s skin itch with their laser gaze.  
“What do _you_ want?” the prisoner demanded.  
Coulson consciously forced the twitch in his neck to relax. Since when did this blind-as-ever, traumatized, barely-able-to-walk amnesiac version of Cecil act so authoritative? He answered anyway, mouth fading into a pleasant smile. “I want to know what Tony Stark was here for.”  
Cecil’s deadpan was complete—so Stark had been here, then—except for the constant kneading of his fingers into the sheets surrounding him. “What do you think he was here for?” the man’s voice deepened slightly. “You, who seem to understand more about my past than I do myself.”  
That’s right, Coulson remembered. Cecil had recognized him, or at least found him familiar, he said as much in the interview. Director Fury hadn’t offered much in the way of explanation amidst his rants about security, but there must have been something to land suspicion on Coulson if he was called up. Had Cecil remembered something else?  
A frustrated huff reminded Coulson that he had an audience. “I assume you’re still there, Agent Phil Coulson. If you want to keep ignoring me, I guess there isn’t really much I can do to stop you. But if you really are here to ignore me, I truly have no idea what you’re doing in my cell.”  
“I—” Wait. Coulson frowned. “How did you know it was me?”  
~~John~~ Cecil raised one black eyebrow. “You’re quiet. The only part of you I can hear is those squeaky leather shoes until you open your mouth.”  
A breath. “Ah.” So the prisoner probably hadn’t figured out the whole trance thing, yet. “In any case, I… may have interacted with you before all this. It wasn’t often, nor were we particularly close, but—well.”  
“You remember me.” Cecil bit his lip.  
“I’m afraid so, yes. From before.”  
“From Night Vale.”

Coulson was definitely not surprised by this addition, and any reports that he actually jumped at Cecil’s monotone statement were entirely overblown. “You… remember?”  
Another blind glare just barely missed the agent’s shoulder as John groaned. “No!” He seethed. “No, I don’t remember, I know it.” This was so… agh! Everybody seemed to think it would be so clear, that John would just remember or not. But it wasn’t… It wasn’t that simple.  
He _remembered_ some things from before that eternity of captivity. Not much, and very little of specificity, but little things—Coulson seemed familiar. The name Night Vale seemed to fit, the name Carlos kept coming to mind with a gush of love and worry and grief. He remembered a microphone, and a dark room (how did he know the room was dark?), filled with purple shadows cradling a sense of mingled comfort and isolation. And as of the surgery, after the lovely Doctor Banner managed to unknowingly release the eldritch horror in his head, these snatches of the past had been appearing more and more frequently—something would remind him, and John would get just a brief image, or a feeling, or a fleeting thought.  
On the other hand, there were the pieces John _knew._ They weren’t memories, or at least not _his_ memories, that was an important distinction. Rather, these were like a recording, blurry and traced with tendrils of hazy violet and saturated with some presence so much bigger than himself, so full, so terrifying, it was like touching a… a star. John swallowed, acid rising in his stomach at the memory. But these recordings, taken as if from just above his eyes, were utterly lacking in all the most important parts—emotion, context, a sense of identity—that was where he got the name Night Vale, even if it was his true memory that made him accept it. John’s fingers recoiled briefly from the mound where his third eye lurked closed as he shoved hair impatiently from his brow. Besides, these certainties had only shown up after the surgery, and only seemed to contain a random smattering of moments, usually within that radio station.  
“Cecil?” Agent Coulson prompted.  
John quelled the rush of bile in order to answer, mouth gaping in humorless laugh. “My name isn’t Cecil.” Of course, he thought. Of course that was why the agent gave him that name during the interview. “My name is John.”  
A snort. “The name John Doe was only handed to you because nobody knew what your actual name was. I know damned well what your real name is, and I bet you do too.”  
“My _name,_ ” John growled, “is _John._ Cecil is… Cecil may be what people called the emotionless _abomination_ who ran this body before I was captured, but those are—that is not the same as me.”  
Coulson sounded honestly taken aback by this, one of the first moments of definite emotion John had ever noticed in him. “Ce—John. You, or he, or whoever it was, they were hardly emotionless.” The agent hesitated, then continued. “You were… You ran a radio show. You had a boyfriend, and gushed about him over the air. You had a pet cat, you hated Steve Carlsberg and loved his daughter Janice, you had moments of fury and… You were practically the heart of Night Vale, its feelings, an executor of its collective consciousness, you were…” Coulson paused again. He probably shouldn’t keep talking, but—“you were its Voice.”

~~~

Nestled under blazing heat in a faraway desert, a woman’s hands tremble against the beat of approaching helicopters. “There’s not enough time, just take it. Distribute the rest of it—you know the drill, I made a list as a reminder, everybody gets a month’s advance pay. Make sure.” She passes the wad of cash to the teenage employee at the door of the ice cream shop. “And tell the Readers I’m sorry.”  
Behind her, papers flutter as another woman scrambles for passports between the miscellaneous paperwork. She grabs a leather suitcase from where it sat beneath the counter for exactly this purpose, pressing a brief code into the box left behind. “Hannah? It’s time to go.”  
Hannah Gutierrez turns to her wife. She takes a breath. A terse nod. Her hand clenches when the money finally leaves it and its custodian races out the door. “I know.”  
Lucy gives a sad smile. “We did everything we could.”  
“We can do it again. So long as this looks convincing.”  
The Night Vale native of the pair wraps her scar-laced arms around Hannah’s neck. She sucks in the scent of her beloved, warmth and cinnamon and sweet. “So long as this looks convincing,” Lucy repeats. “which means Strex cannot know we made it out alive.”

~~~

The prisoner swayed in his cell. Agent Coulson had left, at least, and no other visitors seemed to have appeared. The room was his once more.  
John coughed, leaning back against the immobile wall, hands resting in his lap beneath sheets twisted and twined about his legs. Finally, _finally_ he felt fully in his body again, with aching knees and cotton catching against the rough scars on his ankles. The wall itself was a steady pool of cold against his spine, a counter to the ball of heat centered in his belly.  
A sigh issued from his mouth as John sent shaky hands to probe at his forehead. It was still—ugh. Slimy. John wiped at the goo still surrounding that third eye, drying his hand off on the pillow by his knee. Again, his hand moved up, and rubbed against that disgusting bulge, then down to the blessed clean of the pillowcase. And up, and in, and down, he smeared the substance again, and again, and—was it actually getting _more_ wet? John frowned, fingers held up before him until that insufferable tingle in his forehead brought them back to scratch at its surface. Was he… bleeding? This liquid, John thought, was _somewhat_ different in texture, it didn’t seem nearly so sticky. But his forehead still didn’t feel clean, he couldn’t get it _clean._ John licked his lips and tried to force his hands to stop, to sit quietly in his lap or kneading at the covers and leave that twitching wrongness alone,  but he—  
John’s head snapped back against the wall, his mouth gaping ever so slightly open. His fingers curled. A pale glow surrounded his two eyes in blazing white as the violet third eye echoed black, lids slapping open to stare into the wall.  
No.  
Not into the wall. John’s throat bobbed, lips gasping like a fish. It wasn’t the wall. He saw— _saw_ , in impossible neon, a plume of smoke.  
Yellow helicopters.  
Fire.  
Swelling from the ice cream shop, he thought it used to be an ice cream shop, a red-and-yellow mushroom growing in slow motion as charred figures jerked from the front door, out the windows, their faces a stormy rictus as they stuttered, sparking, to a stop. And from a back door hidden in the paneling, out crept another four, two women, a twelve-year-old in a balaclava, and a rumpled man in a flannel shirt— _Steve,_ John couldn’t help the thought, it would be just like Steve to wait until the _last possible second_ to help. Praise the Beams for those precocious children and their brutal competence, no doubt, for saving Hannah and Lucy. Safely tucked beneath a drain cover, the child led the group. John couldn’t quite hear what Steve was saying, his highly illegal pen skittering across a page and peppered with occasional glances at the ceiling. No doubt it was something totally irrelevant, and the intent nods from Hannah and Lucy were purely nods of pity, trying to make Steve feel better about whatever utter nonsense was leaving his mouth.  
Finally, contraband once more hidden, Hannah gave a sad smile, her face streaked with soot and tears. “We’ll do our best,” she waved, and the pair turned to face the balaclava-clad secret police officer as they melded out of dripping shadows. “Thank you, officer, for volunteering to grant us an escort through the airport.”  
Steve and the child parted to climb back into the light. Lucy Gutierrez tucked the paper into her pocket and began the trek to the airport arm in arm with her partner, trailing behind the officer together.  
“I’m not about to offer to escort you two model citizens anytime,” the officer grunted, “because this is blatantly against policy. But you’re welcome.”

A hoarse gasp filled the room as John slumped forward. The light had fled. He leaned his head against crossed ankles, sucking air in through his nose to cough it out in lackluster heaves. Arms shuddering against his eyes, the third eye once more closed, the man rocked back and forth in reality restored, engulfed in a flood of partially returning memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: Explosions, weird memory stuff, and visions!
> 
> In all seriousness, feel free to offer more ideas for chapter titles in the comments, because I am running real low


	10. The Furtive Fright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm *so close* to being done with writing this, I have a draft all the way through chapter 13 now and it is the *longest thing I've ever written*. :D
> 
> CWs: General paranoia, aftermath of torture

** Chapter 10 **

 “Well,” Lucinda—Lucy—Gutierrez glanced down at the paper with Carlsberg’s scribbled instructions. “This should be it.”  
The view was beautiful, from the smooth silhouette of mountains in the distance which Hannah _insisted_ were real despite the obvious evidence to the contrary; to the bustling cityscape (even if its people were unusually, almost unsettlingly uniform. _None_ of them had extra limbs? Really? And all these beiges and browns, the people here were so… monochrome). But again, Hannah seemed to insist this was perfectly normal for this part of the world, that no terrible genocide or targeted plague had taken place (recently, at least), they just… didn’t have much variety. And here, towering above the two women like the invisible clock tower back home (Lucy’s heart still keened at the thought), stood a great and glowing letter A in a pale blue circle, blazoned along the side of the building. How Carlsberg thought that coming here was a good idea, she had no clue. Yes, he must have gotten coordinates from that watchdog program on the Tourism Board website, but how did he know that this, _this_ was the right alert? And how did he know this was the right building? When she had looked up the numbers on a computer, the coordinates had only revealed countless pictures of one-eyed, six-legged dogs in purple bows. And while the pictures were admittedly adorable, Lucy frowned, they weren’t the most useful for finding a street address.   
Hannah straightened her shoulders, and opened the door.

“Master Stark.”  
Tony sighed. “What is it, Jarvis?” Another late night trying to puzzle out the code by hand, not to mention trying to figure out how he could possibly break John out of SHIELD unnoticed. Ugh. It wasn’t like that was even a remotely good idea, but if it was the only way to get an answer to that code… Tony always had trouble keeping his curiosity reined in with cases like this.  
“There are two women in the lobby asking for a temporary room in Stark Tower.”  
What, like tourists? Tony raised an eyebrow. “Why are you bringing this to me? Let the receptionist tell them to buzz off.”  
The AI’s response was prompt. “According to the security guard currently on duty there, at least one of the pair is well-acquainted with melee combat, and I can confirm that the shorter of the two is carrying a firearm. However, so far none of your would-be assassins have chosen to pose as fans in an attempt to gain traction, and what’s more, neither of them seems to have any idea what this building is.”  
“So they’re weird,” Tony prompted.  
“Precisely. Miss Laura figured that perhaps someone with a bit more authority should be informed, if only because unusual visitors often herald unfortunate events.”  
The inventor sighed. “Like aliens trying to infiltrate the planet, or another major disaster the team has to deal with. Yeah. So the best guess for these two is assassin, is what I’m hearing,” Tony ran one hand through his hair, teeth clamped down on the corner of his lip. “But that still doesn’t really fit, because they’re hardly acting inconspicuous. And they don’t want to admit to knowing what this place is, which is bloody stupid, because some combination of this building and myself are on TV practically every other day.”  
“Exactly, Master Stark.”  
With a groan, Tony pushed himself to his feet. “Tell the receptionist—Laura, you said?—tell her to show them into a more private lobby. Security had better be grouping up just in case, but I’ll be down there in a minute. Don’t let those two chicks know it’s me who’s showing up, though, I wanna surprise them.” He grabbed the metallic red wristband waiting on the table next to them (he didn’t wear it for the fiddly robotics work, it always got in the way), and slapped it on, the join lighting up briefly with pale blue light as it closed. A few brisk strokes and the command was set: the current favorite suit awoke, flying smoothly on its boosters through the door which JARVIS opened for it, ready and waiting by the landing pad on the top floor to come to its operator’s rescue. If this was an assassination attempt, Tony smirked, massive firepower would be bare seconds away. He snatched a gauntlet-bracer combo from a nearby table—all his recent suits were made to be able to exchange extra armor segments with similar suits, so long as the helmet had the right type of setup for the body and the chest and back plates matched—and took a moment to snap it onto his forearm, as precaution. He wouldn’t be completely undefended, even without a security team at his back.   
“Miss Laura had them escorted to room 534,” came the calm voice from the speakers. “the third reception room on the fifth floor, along the south window of the building.”  
With a quick call of gratitude, Tony left.

~~~

Hannah had to admit, she’d missed real cities. Stark Tower was… beautiful, from the inside, immaculate windows stretching from floor to ceiling, afternoon sunlight streaming in to puddle on the shining white tile floors of the conference room. The sky wasn’t nearly the equal of the resplendent oranges and violets of Night Vale’s sand-coated afternoons, but it was certainly brighter, and seeing the sun in its full glory for once without the lethal heat of a divine and smiling menace behind it was enough to set a ferocious grin across her face. Night Vale was lovely, in its way, but she’d moved there to be with Lucy and agreed to stay largely out of convenience. New York had never been home before, but—still. The bustling heart and familiar anonymity of the city was far more comfortable than baking small-town claustrophobia. Hannah rested her head against the coolness of the wall, hands perched on the navy armrests of her chair.  
Breathe in.  
And out.   
The world was safer, here. Just like she’d made a point of reminding Lucy in the Albuquerque airport (Strex already operated the Night Vale airport, so they’d gotten a secret police ride out of town), real danger out here was pretty rare. Gluten was usually harmless. Pens and pencils, pocket calculators? Legal. The only police around, for the most part, stayed clearly labelled and in plain sight, and the mysterious, inconspicuously-dressed figures following the pair of them ever since they entered the building were _probably_ not supposed to be there. Tan fingertips drummed on the top of her thigh, clenching in the fabric of her light cotton pants as Hannah did her best to still her fidgeting. Definitely safe.   
A glance at Lucy’s tense, frozen calm did nothing to alleviate her worries.   
After what seemed like an eternity, another human finally showed up, confidence in every stride but his face traced with a faint, distant frown. The man was white, with dark hair and toned muscles, his head twisting slightly with each step and eyes flicking to survey the room—wary, wasn’t he? His shoulders stood stiff against his back despite the searing red, gold-accented gauntlet encasing his left arm up to the elbow. What was that, Hannah wondered. A weapon? No matter, they weren’t here for violence. His arms were muscular, lined with scars from having survived—no, that would be in Night Vale, she gave a purely internal frown. This wasn’t Night Vale, most people weren’t being attacked every week by so-called feral plastic bags. His clothing, too, was surprising: a plain, grubby black muscle tee marked Stark Industries in pale blue plasticized writing over sweatpants, both singed and torn in places—from combat or shop work? And what was that faint icy glow shining through the weave about his sternum?

Tony sat at the desk, stretching his legs to rest atop it and crossing his arms behind his head. The stare he levelled at the women was as neutral as he could make it.   
“So.” He spoke into the silence after a long, agonizing pause. “What do you want?”  
The first of the visitors to speak was the larger one. Plump, freckled, with tan skin obscured by the sleeves of a jacket and darker brown hair trimmed short and spiky around her face. She was smiling, yes, but the expression barely touched her eyes, pausing from their otherwise constant movement to meet his own. As she began speaking, a moderately-more-sincere grin flashed across her face. “We want to stay here, for a little while. While we’re in New York. Don’t worry, we won’t be long, all we plan to do is take a look around.”  
Tony blinked. “Quick question: do you even know where you are? I’ll give you a hint, this isn’t a hotel.” His eyes slid to the Latina woman slumped in the next chair, her face expressionless despite the old burn scar which spread its fingers along her cheek. Her lids narrowed slightly at the attention, but otherwise she made no sign, hands buried in the pockets of a reddish-purple hoodie.   
The brown-haired woman spoke up again, leaning forward with seeming casualness. “Not really, no.” She tilted her head to one side. “I know the building has the word Stark plastered along the top, and the receptionist said it’s some place called ‘Stark Industries’. Like your shirt.”  
“That’s impossible. That you don’t know what this place is, I mean. You’re right that this is the home of Stark Industries.”  
The woman frowned, gnawing her lip as if her mind was occupied with a particularly complex puzzle. “The Stark industries I know was founded more than fifty years ago, based on the genius of one particular man. The last I heard, he died with no successors and the company dissolved in 1991.”  
“No successors? Where have you even been, hiding under a rock?” Tony gave a little huff. “Look, this was a funny prank while it lasted,” he smirked, sitting up just enough to shove his legs off the table and onto the floor. “Now unless you’ve got something else to say, get out.” There, just a hint more smile, and then—“but do me a favor and drop the gun, give me your names and the address where you’re really staying and I’ll get it back to you.”  
The one who had been speaking paused. “I don’t—”  
The other’s eyebrows shot up, before her face eased into an expression of… amusement? “Nice catch.” Her voice was clear and warm, unaccented with a hint of mustiness. Her eyes flickered to the corner of the desk. “I got it through airport security just fine, but I guess you shadows are a little more discerning.” Who was she even talking to? The Latina woman’s head slipped from its hood, revealing black hair in a messy pixie cut to address the light fixture in the middle of the room. She turned her chin back down to stare at Tony. “I suppose they probably belong to this company you run. You can find better than those amateurs, trust me,” fingertips tapped arrhythmically against the other woman’s leg. “Your agents may be perceptive, but they have a lot to learn about following people unnoticed, not to mention creative camera placement. The light fixture? _Seriously?”_ She snorted. “That’s the first place I’d check.”  
Tony hesitated. “Alright,” he drawled at last, leaning back once more. “I’ll bite. Why shouldn’t I let SHIELD nab you both as attempted assassins? You’ve got the means, you’re obviously trying to arrange the opportunity, and practically anyone’s got the motivation as soon as someone hands them enough money. Talk.”  
The first one to speak sighed heavily. “We’re not here to kill you. Obviously you do something important in this company, you’re acting way to confident to be a peon, but you’re dressed badly enough that I don’t see you being a manager either, which basically just leaves the very top of the totem pole. But seriously, that’s all we know.” She rolled her eyes. “The two of us come from a… place with some pretty heavy censorship, I shouldn’t be surprised to find they decided to not let the rebirth of some random weapons company trickle in to our little town.”  
“Give me names,” Tony growled. “Places.”  
The woman raised an eyebrow. “There’s no way you’d believe me if I said it was in the States, so I’m just gonna keep going.” She took a deep breath. “My name is Helen Mendelssohn. This is my friend Laurel Martinez. We came here—to New York—because we have nowhere else to go. The shop we ran and in which we lived was burned down, a very important person to the town has been missing for several years now, and a friend of ours thought he might be here. According to this friend, Str—the entity responsible for the kidnapping and explosion has yet to expand its tendrils into your company for the most part, otherwise this likely _would_ be more along the lines of an assassination attempt.”  
“In other words,” the Latina woman—Laurel—clasped her companion’s hand in her own, “we’re here to look for someone.”

John, was Tony’s first thought as that casual sentence was tossed in the air. They’re looking for John. He’d said something about secret police, hadn’t he? “Censorship. Like some secret police thing?” Tony made a purely internal grimace. Hopefully that wasn’t too obvious a line—  
“The secret police are here for our protection.” The brunette—Helen, apparently—spouted in a hollow voice, eyes fixed on the wall in front of her. “Any attempts to interfere with their noble work are completely unnecessary.” She seemed weirdly relaxed, all of a sudden, except for the nails digging white-knuckled into the leg of her pants. Her compatriot, on the other hand—Laurel—was tenser than ever, fingers clenched around Helen’s wrist, her expression twisted in a stormy glare which practically bored a hole in the floor.  
Tony gave a slow, uneasy exhale. Okay then, he thought. Maybe that wasn’t just John pulling shit out of his butt. Because if nothing else, came the realization as Tony gnawed into his lip, if nothing else Helen and John both pronounced that phrase with the same sing-song monotony. If nothing else, they both took on the same glassy look, if nothing else they shared that bitter fear.  
Laurel stood, free hand gentle on her companion’s shoulder as she crouched before her. A delicate touch. After a few interminable seconds, Helen started—and she was anything but relaxed, lungs heaving, curled to clutch Laurel in quaking arms. Her breathing slowed.   
“Fuck Strex,” Helen finally muttered, just loud enough that JARVIS could still pick it up and inform Tony through the headphone perched in his right ear. She crumpled into the other woman’s embrace, gaze fixed on the floor.   
“Agreed, my love,” Laurel cracked a sour grin.   
Tony made up his mind.

 

He had to let them in.  
John had mentioned something about Strex, as well, taking over the town. If these two were more victims… Maybe they could help John recover, and learn to control his eldritch dark side. Maybe they could help Tony find the original kidnappers who handed John to HYDRA, so he could beat them into the ground.   
Maybe they could decipher the code.  
Maybe—but all Tony could do was try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: Minor paranoia, effects of re-education


	11. The Waiting Bite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! All of like two days after I finally got around to posting my delay notice! Good job, me! XD  
> I should be back to my normal update schedule after this, though.   
> CWs: ...Not a lot? Drinking/minor alcoholism, some violence, and that's about it.

Phil Coulson _did not like_ the two new residents to Stark Tower.   
For one thing, he knew, they were almost certainly spies, or assassins, or _something_ nefarious. But of course, for whatever beams-forsaken reason, that idiotic Stark insisted on letting them stay, without even explaining why.   
Unfortunately, he couldn’t just oust these visitors, even with the Director’s help—Stark Tower was fully the property of the man who shared its name, after all, or at least his company. But just taking people in like this, they were enormous security threats! _Weird_ security threats, at that. Coulson had never ended up in the same room as them, though he hadn’t particularly been trying, and he’d started to get reports from the other SHIELD agents in the building. The two guests—Laurel especially, that Latina lady with the pixie cut and the burn on her face—seemed practically invulnerable to all stealth. Agent Romanov appeared to be the only agent that had successfully tailed them unnoticed as of yet, and given that Barton would still be out on assignment for a while yet, most of the rest of SHIELD’s team would have to stay out of play. And of course, Phil couldn’t just bug the whole place, because somebody else might be able to hack in to the recordings—cameras and microphones would have to be restricted to public areas and the guest’s bedrooms only.

His one successful gambit as of yet was Romanov, who thoroughly shared his suspicions. Within a week of the strangers first entering Stark Tower, Romanov managed to bug the two women’s room. The first two attempts, one of which was by another agent, had been quickly noticed and removed. But with this third attempt—well. They hadn’t removed all the devices _quite_ yet, so hopefully this round would stay.  
In any case, Phil finally knew what it was that had Stark holed up in his labs. Not some new device, as the agent suspected—there had been a surprising lack of equipment or supply orders made recently beyond those used for routine manufacturing or development projects. He breathed out, a faint smile cracking his lips. It was a _code_.   
Not just any code, either, to occupy the attention of a self-professed genius and his supercomputers for more than an hour. No. This code hummed with the treacle taste of home.

~~~

Natasha Romanov was suspicious.   
Sure, her most recent round of microphones implanted in the rooms of these two guests had yet to be removed—but still, whenever the pair seems to be about to discuss something of import, whenever they huddle in whispered conferences, what happened? They decided to do something else. Run the blender, blast out music so loud their conversation was all but inaudible. Leave, and have that conversation outside the Tower in a crowded shop instead. At this point, it was just… Ugh. Intractable, she scowled. And alarming. Once was chance, twice was coincidence, but this was well over three surreptitious, sober-faced conversations held with near constant eye contact such that nobody could keep a clear line of sight on their mouths. Conspiracy was practically guaranteed!   
_Swish—_  
Natasha kept her face impassive at the unexpected sound, barely even slowing. There would be no use, after all, to letting whoever made that little brush of cloth know they had been detected prematurely. A subtle glance.  
The hallway was clear before and behind her. Glass walls on the left marked a conference room—empty, except for a secretary Nat recognized as a long-time employee. The right side was just a wall, with a couple narrow windows set into its struts, looking out into a server room. She checked the vents above her—nothing. Her paces continued, steady as ever, click click click down the hallway. After a few seconds, a new set of footsteps echoed behind her, moving the other direction toward a branch in the hall.   
They were definitely sneaking, then.   
Natasha’s hand slipped casually to her chest, delicate fingers threading between the buttons of her jacket to collect the gun strapped neatly to her ribcage. She loaded it deftly, pace still businesslike as the footsteps began to fade and then--  
“Freeze.”

Lucy Gutierrez let out an inner curse.   
Hands in the air, she turned to face the redhead. Another watcher, was she? Lucy huffed out a little breath. She should have known better than to think this woman was just a secretary, her steps were too light and her movements too graceful.   
The Night Vale native rolled her eyes. “You probably won’t believe me if I say I’m looking for the bathroom.”  
Agent Romanov gave a little smile. “That was the third door back on your left. What are you doing here, ‘Laurel Martinez’?”  
“Now why would I tell you?” Lucy said, her voice cotton-soft. “You’ve been spying on me, can’t you guess?”  
One step. Two. The agent was maybe three feet away now, weapon pointed at the ground, her eyes steady on Lucy’s. “I would rather hear it directly from the source. Tell you what, if you _don’t_ tell me right now what you’re doing here, I _won’t_ report you to SHIELD. You know, those secret police that you appear so familiar with? Instead,” the redhead stood toe-to-toe with the other’s sandaled feet, her face impassive, “I’m just going to shoot you.” A quick, cold smile. “Helen—but are you sure her name isn’t Hannah?—will never know what happened.”  
Lucy took a breath. “Shit,” she breathed. There wasn’t any way out of this damned hallway that she could see, not that would avoid the inevitable bullet. “What are you, what sort of anti-gun advocate? Guns don’t kill people.” Too bad the other woman was so close, Lucy wouldn’t be able to reach the weapon before the agent gave that deadly squeeze.   
“It doesn’t need to kill you.”  
“Alright!” a sigh. “I get it. Just answer one question first, one quick and simple little question.” Lucy’s eyes centered on the agent’s face, squinting ever so slightly as they did. “What is Strexcorp?” Stark may be free of the Smiling God’s taint, but that didn’t mean everyone in the building was.  
Agent Romanov blinked. “That isn’t the question,” came the brisk response.  
“So you don’t know,” Lucy grinned. “You’re a Stark employee, right? The bloodstones were fairly clear that most of Stark Industries is still clear of their influence.”  
What? Natasha tilted her head ever-so-slightly. Bloodstones? Wasn’t that just another name for… jasper? Some other weird rock? Finally she answered, immaculate makeup entirely harmonious with the deadly weapon clutched in her hands. “And what influence would that be?”   
“Strex!” Lucy spat. Her hands began to drift from their raised position, but returned when the agent gave her a glare. “Strexcorp’s influence.” She hesitated. “Look. I’ve seen you around, from time to time. You watch, and spy, and notice things. I get it, you’re just trying to keep some shit secret. It’s your job. Every successful business needs a few clandestine mob enforcers if it’s going to prosper.”   
“What. Are. You. Doing here?” Natasha growled.  
“I already told you people,” the woman protested. “Our home was burned down, so we moved—”  
“Not here as in New York.” Natasha’s tone sent a shiver down the other’s spine, its syllables were so sharp. “Stark Tower. Why did you come to Stark Tower?”   
Silence.   
Lucy sighed, eyes narrowed. That useless lock of hair flopped back to her forehead as she moved, obscuring one side of the woman’s face. She hardly looked human, now, with the burn scar eating up half the visible portion, her eyes twinkling from shadowed sockets beneath the fine curtain of black. “Fine,” she muttered. “Helen had better be right about this. I’m here to look for someone.” The tip of her tongue flicked from chapped lips. “His name is Cecil Palmer, and without his help obscuring enemy communications, providing intelligence, broadcasting troop movements, etcetera, the only remotely competent resistance force in town to Strexcorp’s horrors is dead in the water. It’s been all their forces can do to hold the line.”  
“And what makes you think this Cecil is here?”    
An indecipherable look left Lucy’s eyes as she tucked her chin just slightly downward. “Because. Strex already found him.”  
The agent stared for a moment. Finally, she spoke. “That’s it. I’m bringing you in.”

~~~

Tony woke to a calm announcement from his robot butler into the headphone digging into his ear against the desk. “Master Stark. Helen Mendelssohn is standing at the entrance to your lab.”   
He opened his eyes. Ugh, why was the world so fuzzy?   
“She brings with her a bottle of Sangria.”  
Oh good. Booze to drown the stench of failure. Tony was never much of a wine person, but still. Alcohol. “Let her in,” he called. There that blasted code waited, _still,_ glowing annoyance on his screen. Thank fuck he always tried to keep SHIELD out of his labs, because at least this way he could order pizza and booze as he worked without going through some stupid security protocol every time. At least for the not-quite-as-ridiculously-sensitive problems.   
Was it weird, he thought, that Helen’s footsteps barely made a sound? Tony leaned back in his chair with a little groan, minimizing the window where that infuriating string of symbols stared at him. “Hey. You found your friend yet?”  
The woman smiled, but her eyes were still sad. “No.” She plopped herself down on a chair a few feet away and lifted the bottle. “You seemed like you were having trouble with something too. So.”  
“You figured booze would be a good idea?”  
“It’s a tradition where I’m from,” Helen shrugged. “Drink to forget.” She wasn’t actually originally from Night Vale, of course, but it was close enough. She was probably more Night Vale by now than she was Seattleite, what with the way she still couldn’t bring herself to willingly pick up a pen, much less ask for a piece of bread.   
Tony gave a little snort. “I think that’s a tradition everywhere.” A bottle opener was snatched off the desk as he pried the seal open and chugged a few swallows of wine. Was she honestly trying to commiserate with him? Probably not, Tony thought. As weird as these two were, she almost certainly had to want something from him.   
Helen bit her lip before answering. “I guess so.” She grabbed the bottle in one hand and took a swig. “I wish it didn’t have to be.”   
“You and me both.” What was this about?  
After a few seconds of silence, the woman continued. “Steve says he sent a message. Doesn’t know if it got across.”   
Tony’s eyes snapped to her immediately. “A message?”   
“Coded, obviously. The hope is that whoever Strex had keeping an eye on things is enough of a sympathizer not to tell them that something popped up, but we don’t actually know. Besides, even if whoever it was is on our side…” Hannah cracked a bitter grin, “there’s no guarantee they’d be capable of keeping their mouth shut.”  
His mind raced. A coded message… and she mentioned someone named Steve. Didn’t John say something about a Steve when they were chatting illicitly in his cell?   
Tony frowned. He was not subtle. He was never good at subtle, I mean as Pepper pointed out, his idea of subtle was a hot rod red robot suit with gold accents so shiny it made bystanders go blind. But maybe he could… “Like a physical message, or just an email or something?”   
Helen shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, Steve sent it. If we didn’t get a response… something’s wrong, and I don’t know what. I guess he’s probably just.” A swallow. “You know.”  
“Dead.”  
A bitter laugh tore itself from the woman’s throat. “He already is, legally. That isn’t hard to do.”  
“I know, right?” Tony joked. “You’d think those assholes could just refrain from keeling over for a few more hours, but they never do, do they?” Well shit.  
“They never do.” Helen stared into space for a moment longer, then took a few more gulps of wine. She grimaced. “This is pretty shitty wine. Sorry.”  
The inventor chuckled faintly. “Whatever. It doesn’t need to be good to work, but I get you. JARVIS? Have someone send up some better booze, will you?”  
“I’m partial to rum, myself,” came the comment. “or absinthe.”   
“Or wine?” Tony smirked.   
Helen rolled her eyes, one hand on the back of her neck as she answered. “Wine makes a reasonable appetizer.”   
“Hardass,” he chipped. “JARVIS, you heard the lady. Rum it is.”

~~~

Tony gnawed his lower lip, one eye on the guest staring moodily into her whiskey. Helen… well. She was tipsy, at least, flushed and more emotional than before. But she had had like four drinks at this point. Shouldn’t she be more drunk than this? Whatever. Through herculean effort, it seemed, Tony had managed to keep himself under three drinks over the past couple hours. I mean come on, Helen was obviously trying to get him sloshed, probably to either kill him or get some vital information. It couldn’t just be her own depression. Could it?  
Either way… he still hadn’t made any progress on the code. If Helen and Laurel, if that was their actual names, had anything to do with John—John said he could decode the message. Could _they_?   
“Alright, Helen,” Tony grinned. “I gotta, gotta show you something.” Nat was going to strangle him. To be fair, he wasn’t exactly sober anymore. And the ladies at least claimed to be anti-Strex, and John was too, I mean his story about Strex wrecking the town corroborated Helen’s story. So that had to make up for that fact that they were blatantly looking for John, right? John whose original name, the prisoner had let slip during that panic attack before the surgery, was Cecil Palmer, and who had a maybe-friend named Steve.   
When Tony pulled up the code, Helen sucked in a breath. “That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s it, that’s—”  
Shit. Maybe? I mean this was kind of what he was looking for in the first place, but… welp, Tony bit his lip. He was in the shit now. “What is it? I’ve been trying to figure out what it means for days now, I can’t—ugh. It just showed up, hijacked my system, and then disappeared! So what, exactly, do you have to do with this? I swear, I may hate SHIELD sometimes with a burning passion but if you refuse I will absolutely turn you in.”  
Helen gave an internal curse before answering. “I—nothing, I don’t—”  
“Bullshit.” The inventor held up his braceleted hand, and in moments a single shining gauntlet snapped to its flesh, repulsor charged and ready. “Who are you looking for?”  
She stared. After a couple long seconds, Helen shook her head ever-so-faintly, hair falling into her eyes as she raised her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “If you’re actually working for Strex, or if this ever trickles back to them…” a swallow. “His name is Cecil Palmer. And that,” she nodded to the code on Tony’s screen, “was the message Steve sent.”   
He glared.  
“I can translate it for you!” Helen’s voice was almost frantic, “but please, please trust me. I don’t want to hurt Cecil, or make anything harder for him, and honestly I get it if he wants to stay away from Night Vale, I mean so do I, but we need him. _They_ need him.”   
“Or what?” Tony’s gauntlet was steady, repulsor pointed at the woman’s face.   
“Or they will die. The town will die, along with everyone in it, when Strex finally tracks down Tamika’s forces. And then they will expand, and it’ll be your problem too.”   
Fuck, came the thought. Tony frowned. He couldn’t just… ignore the destruction of an entire town. But he didn’t even know Helen was telling the truth, and even if he did Fury wouldn’t exactly listen right now, and… “Decode that. And show me how you do it.”  
The woman nodded, slowly lowering her hands. “Okay. I can, I can do that. I need some scratch paper, but yeah. Just give me a couple minutes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: Threats of violence, specifically.


	12. The Running Height

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Not much? Imprisonment and drugs, I guess.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, even though I got a bit unreliable with my posting schedule there. You guys absolutely make my day.

Somewhere far away.  
Somewhere far from Stark Tower, in a desert filled with doorways formed of oak worn smooth by sand and time, there sprawls a town. In that town, at one house not unlike every other in the neighborhood, a few blocks from the elementary school, a little girl knocks. Not at the door, but at the left-highest window—because for one thing, doors are for people with no imagination (Skullduggery Pleasant vol. 1, Derek Landy) and for another, the organization that was hunting her had obviously set cameras to observe the front doors of all known PTA parents. They weren’t stupid, after all.   
So the one little girl crouched in a tree beside a window, and knocked a pattern out on its pane with a clenched fist. And eventually—Eventually, somebody came, with footsteps hollow on the wooden floor. The woman was tall, eyes half-hidden beneath a veil of hair, her body layered in scars under the cardigan she sported—but that was hardly any news at all, for this was Night Vale. She glanced up, the second mouth embedded in her throat giving the faintest of frowns as she saw the girl’s manic grimace, her pupils dilated even past what would be normal given the sky’s current darkness. A sheen of sweat trickled down the young girl’s temple. One step. Two, and hands busied themselves with the latch and two bolts which held the window closed. Three, and the little girl tumbled through.   
She landed on her feet. Thump, came the sound, the girl stumbled upon landing. It took several seconds and a couple of tries before the little girl’s mouth managed to bend from its dreamy rictus into comprehensible words.   
Well. One word, anyway. “Carlsberg,” she slurred, fingers clenched around the windowsill. “Take me to Steve Carlsberg.”

Tony gave a blink of surprise when he saw the paper. “You’re sure about that?” A pair of numbers, and a name. That was it. Tamika? Hadn’t John mentioned someone of that name? “What are the numbers for?”   
Helen glanced up at him from where she sat, hands splayed in front of her on the part of the table Tony had cleared for this purpose. “They’re coordinates.”  
“To?” Before the woman could even respond, he was already typing the numbers into a hologram. “JARVIS, can you pull up a map?” In mere moments, another display popped up—a map of the US. And toward the southwest corner, on the southeast edge of New Mexico, blinked a little blue dot.  
Helen brushed her hair out of her eyes, sitting up a little straighter. “Night Vale. It’s the coordinates to Night Vale.”

~~~

Phil Coulson stared. Sure, he knew the two women Tony Stark had idiotically let into the building were trouble, but this? “Lucy.”  
Agent Romanov’s eyes flicked up to his own as Lucy Gutierrez stilled in her grasp. Lucy squinted up at him between the locks of hair dripping into her face. “… Phil? Phil Coulson? What are you doing here?”  
His face felt like molasses as he rearranged its features into something more neutral. When Phil answered, his voice was cool. “I left during the Career Day of 1981, to work for the vague yet menacing government agency. I am, of course, forbidden to return. Why are you here?”    
“My house burned down, ice cream parlor and all.”  
“So you left?” His voice was about as incredulous as it ever got. Lucinda and Hannah Gutierrez, abandon Night Vale and their dream business because of a simple fire?  
“Care to explain why you know each other?” Agent Romanov interrupted. “I found her sneaking around near the server rooms, this isn’t exactly a high school reunion.”  
Lucy answered without a glance to her captor, voice soaked with dark sarcasm. “Night Vale is no longer a good place for independent businesses. We had to blow it up ourselves just to get out alive.”  
Coulson gave a snort. “I’m surprised you got out at all. The town doesn’t exactly enjoy giving up residents.”  
“Yes, well.” She tossed her head briefly, trying and failing to swing the hair from her eyes. “It needs somebody to get out. After all,” Lucy let out a quick breath, “Cecil already did.”  
At that, Agent Romanov wrenched her captive around to glare at Coulson. “Agent Phil Coulson. Do I need to take Ms. Laurel/Lucy here to Fury if I want a straight answer? Because you seem to have a bit of a conflict of interest.”   
A slight smile. “No, no, Agent Romanov.” He somehow managed to completely ignore the other agent’s piercing stare as he looked back up at her. “I simply happen to actually know what she’s talking about.” Coulson turned back to Lucy, despite the fact that all he could see around the Agent was her right shoulder and handcuffed wrists. “I know about Strex.” Coulson’s smile dropped. “I know at least a portion of what they’ve done. The oranges, the fighting, the company picnic. I know there are some rebels.” A little grimace traced his face at that. “I know that Strex is in all likelihood the ones who took Cecil. And I know where Cecil is.”  
“You—” Lucy lunged, only to be brought up short when Romanov shoved one shoulder under her joined arms in an easy arm lock. The woman continued her hissing fury, though. “You _know where he is?_ And you know what’s going on, and you didn’t—you didn’t help to get him home?!”   
“He’s hardly in a state to go back there, much less to face the heart of his aggressors.”  
“Without Cecil’s help,” Lucy’s voice spiraled louder, “the rebellion is hopeless! With him, at least we—they—have a chance.” Was that a tear, glistening at the corner of the woman’s eye?   
Coulson shook his head. “No,” Eyes drawn, he bit his lip as he answered. “He can’t—he doesn’t remember.” Did he? “Or he does, but not really, I don’t actually understand it myself. But either way, Cecil… he isn’t exactly himself at the moment. And besides, the very mention of Strexcorp makes him panic right now, he wouldn’t be particularly helpful working from the heart of their territory.  
Agent Romanov’s head tilted gently to the right for a moment before she spoke.  “John,” the word plopped into the silence. “You’re talking about John Doe. Aren’t you.” When no reply issued from either of the others, she continued. “This is how he knows you,” her voice grew louder, “ _this_ is why you had that clandestine interview, and now you’re telling this random infiltrator to the Tower all about him.” A frown. But on the other hand, Natasha thought, Coulson obviously knows what he’s doing. He always has, he’d been an active SHIELD agent since before the Red Room project. And he had never been one to throw SHIELD over completely—but of course, if he knew what he was doing, nobody would know. And furthermore, well—John. John hated Strex, feared Strex, even when he didn’t remember jack shit about them. Natasha bit her lip. John was probably the only person she could trust in this mess to be telling the truth, at least when he remembered it clearly. And if John was that terrified of Strex, and it sounded like Coulson and this woman—Lucy, apparently?—were equally against it… they probably had a point. “Fine.” She let up on Lucy’s cuffed arms as she glared back at the other agent. “Coulson? Tell me what’s going on and maybe I won’t just lock her up and report back to Fury.”

~~~

Steve Carlsberg didn’t entirely know what to expect when Karen came pounding down the steps into the bunker, but it certainly wasn’t this.   
“Tamika?” It wasn’t Tamika. It couldn’t be Tamika, he frowned, I mean it looked so much like her, but…   
“It’s her.” Karen lowered the fragile 12-year-old’s form onto the tattered couch. The girl was… grinning. Tamika hardly ever smiled, especially not since Strex invaded. And besides, the couch seemed to swallow her up, she looked so small and frail. “She gave the right code and everything,” the PTA mom insisted.   
Eyes narrowing, mouth gaping like a fish’s lips, the child’s throat jerked once, twice—“Carlsberg,” the whisper came, choked between a rebellious rictus of teeth. The movement glinted light along her clammy skin, ringing faintly off the curve of blood that trickled down her brow and glistened from the strip of fabric bound about her shoulder. “I made it out.” A rattling breath as one arm pulled her upright on the couch. “But I can’t think right now,” she gasped, “they injected me with… I don’t know.” The girl’s mouth twisted back into that manic, Strex-approved smile when she paused to suck in precious air. “You’ve got experience. Fix it.”  
Steve let out a bitter snort. “I guess I do.” He’d taken care not to show his face since the start of the company picnic, but hadn’t been able to avoid a certain amount of Strexcorp re-education before that. Either way, that was more experience than most anybody else had who’d gotten out again. “But not like you do, I suppose, the only person yet to make it out from actual, established Strexcorp custody. Even Carlos was only there for a few hours.”  
As the PTA mom slipped back upstairs, Tamika flopped against him. “I can’t. Hold myself up too well right now,” she muttered through the rigid grin. “Sorry.”  
“But you don’t want them to know,” Carlsberg nodded. “I get it.” He stood, leaning her gently back against the sofa as he did. He’d have to move back out to the desert base to hide, now. Strex must be searching frantically for their lost star prisoner, and Steve couldn’t count on the drugged and exhausted Tamika to have covered her tracks perfectly.

“I’ll do the best I can.” Steve stood, massaging the back of his neck with one hand as he thought. After a couple seconds, he turned back to Tamika. “Let me contact the Book Club, get us moved to a more secure location—”  
“No.”   
“What? But they’ll be looking for you—”   
“No!” The girl growled. She struggled to bend her lips again, neck muscles seizing up in the process. A groan of frustration.   
Steve knelt, again, placing Tamika’s hand on top of his own on the couch. “Here. Tap it out. Would that be easier?”   
She relaxed after a moment, nodding ever-so-slightly as the grin returned, taunting in its glassy claims of drug-addled normalcy. _Yes,_ she signaled, brush-tap-brush-brush against his wrist. When Carlsberg spoke again, his eyes bored into hers as pools of mottled wood.   
“What is your objection?”  
Tamika sighed, or got as close as she could without having to fight the frozen grimace of her musculature again. _They’ll see me_ , she tapped. _Like this._ At Steve Carlsberg’s startled expression, the girl continued. _I’m not scared,_ came the correction. _If they see, they’ll worry. And the rescued will feel guilty that they can’t resist as well as me.  
_ A frown slid into place on the man crouched before her. “You think that if your troops see you drugged, injured, and recovering, they’ll get scared that you aren’t fit to stay leader. And you fear—sorry, you’re _concerned_ that if the people the Book Club already rescued from Strexcorp custody see you, they’ll feel bad because you just happen to be less susceptible than they are to whatever drugs they were using, or have the sheer bloody-mindedness to push through it better. Did I interpret that right? You’re being a little short on words.” Another yes, rapped in staccato beat. “Tamika,” Carlsberg’s voice was slow and gentle. To be honest, whispered Tamika’s traitor thoughts, she appreciated it. “However we do it, we need to move. You aren’t in your right mind right now. We can’t afford to just assume that you managed to cover your tracks perfectly on your way out, and you’re Strex’s most important prisoner besides Cecil. They’ll be on your trail. Understand that?”   
On the one hand, this was patronizing as hell, Tamika glowered mentally. On the other—thinking was hard enough right now, she didn’t know that she _could_ parse more complicated sentences at a normal speed until the drugs wore off. Carlsberg probably knew that. A few brief gestures against the scarred veins of his forearm, and her comprehension was established. _I suppose._ Her nails dug into Carlsberg’s skin when he started to shift his arm away, and Tamika started up again. _Wait. I understand we need a new hiding place,_ came the placating words as Carlsberg opened his mouth to speak. _But don’t contact the whole Book Club. Don’t tell them I’m back. They need to follow the interim leader for now.  
_ “Then what am I supposed to do?” The frustration in the older man’s voice was obvious, only amended when he kept speaking. “Do you have an idea?”  
_A plan. To get us out quietly._.-   .--. .-.. -. _  
_ Carlsberg blinked. “Of course you do, you always have a plan,” he chuckled softly, head shaking just a few spare inches. “Who do I contact?”   
One name, tapped in silence onto Steve’s arm. He stood up, leaning Tamika back against the couch, and strode to the other side of the bunker where a circle of dark green stones with bloody flecks lurked in subterranean stillness. Steve knelt in the center, where the stones pulsed evenly in his mind from all directions, closing his eyes as with a gentle twist of thought he sank into humming trance.   
He reached--  
And familiar shadows enveloped him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: References to past imprisonment, Strex using drugs to make people look happy and not think


	13. The Scourge's Spite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is written! And beta'd! And this is by far the longest written work I have ever finished in my life. Watch out, there's one more chapter coming after this, and then eventually in the future there should be a sequel picking up from where chapter fifteen leaves off.  
> Love you all!
> 
> CWs: imprisonment, trance, referenced drug use

John was not asleep when somebody came knocking. Knocking? This was a cell, he thought. A prison. Why would anyone bother to knock? Sure enough, the door creaked open a moment later, heralding three, no, four with Agent Coulson’s distinctive shoes, four people. Or was it five, in that barest whisper of cloth and leather?  
“Cecil?” The voice was gentle, if a little hoarse, accompanied by the swish of clothing as she knelt. “It’s me. It’s Hannah.”   
Spine flat against the wall, John only brought his bony knees to his chest under their sheets. His head drooped. “My _name_ is John.” So, she was a friend of Coulson’s. How… wonderful, came the scowl. There was only silence for a moment, before Agent Coulson spoke.   
“I told you as much. He doesn’t remember much, and what he does know is mostly… incomplete. And then he rejects it.” Coulson’s voice betrayed little sentiment beyond casual, remote curiosity, as though he were talking about some specimen in a jar.  
The next person to speak had a voice like little bells, detached but inescapably smooth even in its harsher tones. “John, then,” Oh, this one was _familiar._ “Do you… know me?”   
“Based on your voice and the sounds of your movement alone?” John snorted. “Now how would I do that so quickly? If I have ever met you, that must have been before—” John cut himself off. And yet-- Hannah, she called herself, that name was familiar. Was this—   
“Can’t you see me?” The bell-like voice continued. Who _was_ she?   
“Does he _look_ like he can see anything?” came the retort. So there was a fifth person after all. Agent Romanov, by the sound of it, no wonder she was so quiet. But who were, who were the other two, the two he didn’t know? This ‘Hannah’ and her friend, her _partner_ , both familiar enough to burn his mind in two, aching in the hollow of his skull. “John, I’m sorry,” Tony’s voice betrayed his frown, riding an undercurrent of tipsy confusion. “Just let me know and I promise I will kick all of these assholes out.”   
“Tony, they’re here for a reason. John has reason to care about them, or apparently would if he remembered. I won’t let you just assume he wants to be alone.” Definitely Agent Romanov, yes, the leather creaked when she moved.   
“I’m not leaving!” The chiming voice insisted. “Cecil—John, I mean, he needs to know.”  
“Lucy—”

John pressed himself against the wall when the argument broke out. Such a small cell, he thought, was _not_ meant for six people at once. Whispering to unknown gods, yes, that was fine. Praising the almighty Glow Cloud (all hail), absolutely! Digging fingernails into the itching abomination of an eye implanted in your forehead, why not? But half a dozen sweaty people yelling at each other when you haven’t so much as been in the same room as anyone else in days? John’s knees drew themselves up to his chest almost without conscious input, hands clasping themselves about them in a clammy grip.  
“Can’t you see he’s _not okay_ right now?!” One phrase in the cacophony, and there was blessed silence.   
Hannah knelt by the shaking figure, her hands outstretched. “John,” came the quiet words. “I’m sorry. If you want us to leave, and maybe come in one at a time—”  
“You won’t go in here unguarded,” Natasha interrupted. “I still have no particular reason to trust you.”  
“Fine,” the first continued. “If you’d rather we come talk to you in ones and _twos_ , we can.” Before John could reply, she started speaking again. “But first, I would like you to try something. If you don’t mind.” At the tilt of the captive’s head, Hannah smiled. She reached into her pocket, one hand resting lightly on top of John’s foot so he would know where she was, and drew out--   
“You brought a set of bloodstones?” Coulson finally contributed to the discussion.   
The woman dropped them one by one about the captive’s body in a perfect circle, handing one at last to John himself. “Do you know what these are?”  
Fingers tightened along smooth chalcedony. A fuzziness had invaded his head, increasing with each stone added to the circle. It was… comforting, in a way. Familiar. Terrifying, but it was a warm, soothing sort of terror. John relaxed, just a bit.  
“They are, as Coulson said, bloodstones.” Hannah bit her lip. No response, huh? “Do you remember how to use them?” Station Management certainly appeared to remember, she noted. The third eye itself was still closed, but the tattoos twining themselves about every inch of skin had begun to shift slowly, mesmerizing, inky currents slipping along the scarred brown of his hide.   
“What even is that,” Tony interjected, “some hooey-dooey magic shit?”  
Lucy glared at him in amber irritation. “It’s a bloodstone circle, you moron.”  
“And now what?” came the reply, dripping with sarcasm. “We just all wait for your useless hippie crap to have the obvious lack of effect?”  
“What kind of heretic—”  
“He’s just not used to—”  
“How long are you going to waste all of our time just to—”  


Forgotten in his own prison cell, John drifted, thoughts peeling off to be replaced by that cradle of static.

  
~~~

“Report!”  
Weird Scout Abboud snapped to attention before her. “Tamika. I got news from Interim Leader Janice that Cecil has been found.”  
The rebel leader narrowed her eyes. “We thought he had been found weeks ago.”  
“I know, Tamika.” That name was almost a title on Abboud’s tongue. “But the Seers _saw_ him, this time, returning to Night Vale. The best estimates point that he will arrive via helicopter over the shadowy world government organization’s old recruitment building, several days from now. He will be damaged, he will be… incomplete. But he will have help.”  
“Help?” Tamika lifted one eyebrow, rolling stiff shoulders back despite the ache that pervaded them.   
“In the form of some very capable interlopers, and one other who should not be here. What about Carlos?”   
A brisk nod, masking the briefest of hesitations. “Have the Erikas bring Carlos here, but don’t tell him why. I need to make sure Cecil is capable of what we need from him first, and untampered with enough that he won’t be running off to Strex even by accident. Carlos will just get in the way if we have to take… precautions. In the meantime, I suppose I should take back over from Janice.” The rebel leader’s eyes were sharp as they raked over her subordinate. She grinned, sudden and predatory. “‘Yea, I shall return with the tide.’ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.”

~~~

Once Tony pointed out John wasn’t responding even when addressed directly, the group left his cell, leaving the bloodstones behind at Lucy’s insistence. After a while, Coulson left to continue his duties, as did Agent Romanov. Tony—stayed. The silence between them practically vibrated, it was so tense.  
“You can’t seriously think those rocks are going to do anything.”  
Hannah rolled her eyes, one hand on her wife’s arm to prevent her from another outburst at the heresy of the outside world. “Those ‘rocks’ are the reason we were at all willing to tell you people what’s going on.”  
“Yeah, but—”  
The door burst open.  
More specifically, the door, already beginning to leak tendrils of misty darkness unnoticed by its erstwhile sentries, tumbled off of its hinges and onto the floor. Mere seconds later, a figure glowing grey flowed from the gap, three blazing white points on his face where the eyes should be. Tentacles, no thicker than a man’s forearm but still indisputably present and dipped in violet ichor left the remains of the door to curl like liquid in the air beside him.   
A voice intoned, slow and deliberate, dripping with righteous fury. “What did they _do_ to _my Carlos?”_  the figure demanded, and before the three could react, “ _What_ did they _do to my town?”  
_ Tony stared. It was like the panic attack on the Quinjet all over again, a ringing in his ears so strong he could barely speak. But this time—this time, there would be no passing out, and there was no taser hidden within easy reach to calm him down. A glance at the women showed Hannah to be similarly transfixed, her mouth gaping open. But Lucy, hands clutching her ears, black hair coating her face, managed to look steadily up to the man, the monster floating a half a foot off the ground before them. “Cecil,” she said quietly, “You’re coming on a little strong.”  
The Voice of Night Vale turned. “A _little strong,_ you said?” he grinned a feral smile, a pair of ebon limbs bending to twine absently around the arms of his interlocuter and leaving purple in their wake. “I should hope I’m coming on a _little strong_ ,” muscles flexed, the tentacles tightening about her arms, “because when I walk right in to Strexcorp’s headquarters with Lauren Mallard’s battered corpse in my grip, I intend to come on _very_ strong,” he growled. Finally, John relented, his feet settling on the ground, though Lucy’s arms were still drawn out before her in his grip.   
Now that the ringing in his ears had subsided, Tony made an attempt at jumping in to the conversation. “John, are you—”  
“I’m fine.” A hiss. “Hannah, Lucy. What about Carlos? What about _Night Vale?_ Why aren’t you there? Why aren’t you _helping_?”  
“I’ll stop you there,” Lucy interrupted, hands cautiously leaving her ears to massage her temples. Her eyes swept briefly to the monster’s face as she answered. “Carlos is fine.” She took a breath. “You got enough of the rescue started, Tamika brought her forces in to finish it. They got him out, with relatively few casualties, and Khoshekh disappeared with the Erikas. Tamika was captured during another rescue mission, about a month before we left.   
“Tamika?!” The blazing grey and white faded significantly at the news. His voice was vulnerable, now, the eye back to a solid, if luminous, purple. “Did they get her out?”   
Hannah shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t know. We left about a month and a half ago, and it had already been over two years since you were captured.”  
“Two—” he froze, head slipping sideways on his spine. “Oh. I wasn’t sure how long it had been, but I thought more time had passed.”   
“Cecil—Er. John? How much do you remember?” Hannah paused briefly. “What name would you rather be called?”  
“My questions first,” never mind that he didn’t have a clue what he’d rather be called, “what about Night Vale? I know a little from my earlier visions, like how you blew up your shop, but still not enough. Why are you two _here?_ At Stark Tower, specifically?”

~~~

“Sir,” Phil Coulson’s lips spread into the faintest of placating smiles. “Before you remind me of how little trust you hold in any of us so far, let me ask you a question.”  
“I am not letting you absolute morons take that prisoner out of SHIELD custody, period.” Fury glared.   
“Sir, when was the last time you heard from the Desert Sands recruitment center?” the agent insisted. He knew what the answer would be. The recruitment center had been mysteriously deserted a few years prior, according to Scoutmaster Harlan over the bloodstone circles.   
“Why in all hell does that matter?” After a few seconds of silence, the director sighed and pulled up the numbers with a few easy taps. “I heard from them yesterday. I repeat, Coulson, what does that have to do with anything?”  
Yester—what? Coulson kept the smile plastered over his face regardless of his own confusion. Think fast, think fast—ah. “He won’t be leaving SHIELD custody, sir. Upon arrival in Night Vale, we will place the prisoner in the recruitment center’s holding cells immediately, and keep an additional eye on him ourselves. We simply need him present for the purposes of this investigation.”  
“What investigation, agent?”  
Coulson’s expression was unchanged as he replied. “The investigation into Strexcorp Synernists, Inc., the company which is purportedly responsible for handing Ce—the prisoner John Doe over to HYDRA. Approximately a month ago, they proposed a deal involving weapons trading with us, but because of this link with HYDRA, standard operating procedure requires that we investigate it thoroughly before making any commitments. As it happens, the area where Strexcorp is based is known for being extraordinarily insular, and Mr. Doe has been strongly linked in my research to a major figure in the town. His presence, and any knowledge he does manage to recall, will likely be invaluable in any investigations therein.” Before the director could interject, he continued. “Yes, the Desert Sands recruitment center has also launched an investigation at my prompting, but I have reason to believe that they may have been compromised in their efforts, hence why I do not feel comfortable merely dropping the prisoner off with them—” Fury would learn about this soon enough anyway.   
A beat. “According to your reports, the prisoner has panic attacks at the bare mention of Strexcorp. How, exactly, will he be useful to your investigations in such a state?”  
Coulson’s answer was smooth. “A few minutes ago, I received a call from Mr. Stark that John had just had something of a breakthrough. At the moment, he seems to be rather more… enraged, if anything, at the thought of Strex. I am confident that with the help of someone more combat-focused, any undue resentment of John’s may be contained.”   
“Someone like, say, Stark?”   
There was a wince on Coulson’s part. “I would rather avoid—”   
“Too fucking bad. I know you don’t like Stark, and he is in fact an enormous prick. But guess what, Coulson? You get to deal with it. Consider it a test.” Fury stood up. “Take Romanov with you, and Banner as reinforcements in cast Stark gets distracted by a pretty girl or something.”  
“I’m sorry, sir, but I really don’t think Agent Romanov would be the best choice here.” Romanov would inevitably insist on investigating, on trying make everything make sense. Obviously this made her an inestimable asset when there was something to understand, but… well. Night Vale. “Could Agent Hill—”  
Stare. “Natasha Romanov will _do her job_ , Agent. She at least completed her assigned duty, unlike you, who failed to report your interview, sabotaged the recordings, and proceeded to drug yourself into near incoherency.” Fury’s tone was icy. “Consider yourself lucky to get leave to investigate this in person at all. If I didn’t have the confidence in your dubiously helpful loyalty that I do, you would be handing this over to Sitwell as we speak.”  
Coulson bit down on the inside of his lip before answering. “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”  
“Don’t prove me wrong.”  
There was the smallest of grins on the agent’s face, sincere now for once in his life. “Of course not, sir.” Coulson turned and left.    
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: fairly humane imprisonment? and implied mind control, basically


	14. The Brightest Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of Part 1! :D
> 
> CWs: Trance and magic stuff

Bruce made sure he was seated next to John when they got him on the miniature Quinjet. The man was so… collected now, Bruce reflected, sitting perfectly still on that uncomfortable chair, barely even squirming around the handcuffs locked against plastic armrests. Something must be up with him. Even if Tony seemed as oblivious to the weirdness as he chatted with Natasha, the thought refused to leave Bruce’s head, something had to be up. John was never this calm.  
“Are you sure you don’t want to come and see this through?” Thankfully the jet was still on the ground, so Bruce could still hear Coulson’s gentle words.  
Hannah Gutierrez only gave a rueful smile. “No thanks,” she answered, her hand entwining itself in Lucy’s as she did. “Even without Strexcorp’s bloody hands all over it, I’ve had enough of Night Vale’s dangers to last a lifetime.”  
“Besides,” Lucy added with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “It’s not every day you get to leave with only a cursory search, or leave Night Vale at all, for that matter. I’d rather keep the family bloodstones instead of trusting to luck and the beams for their safety a second time.”  
Coulson nodded. “That’s probably sensible. I hear your ice cream was astonishingly good, though, and I look forward to trying it. The two of you had only just returned from Seattle when I left for Career Day, after all.”  
“Of course.” Lucy gave a sharp-toothed grin. “I’m particularly partial to Hannah’s ‘Deep Sea Oblivion’ flavor, you should buy a cone or three when we open the shop again.”  
“Looking forward to it.” With a final smiling salute to the women, Coulson turned to jog up the ramp. His eyes lingered on John as he passed, but the agent settled into the co-pilot’s seat without a pause. “Agent Romanov?”  
Tony sat back into his own seat, and Nat turned her attention forward. “We are ready for takeoff. Everybody strapped down?”  
A chorus of assents, and with a roar of engines brought to life, the ramp closed and the Quinjet began to rise.

~~~

The transfer of power had been just as smooth as Tamika would have liked. She’d appeared in the main camp, Weird Scout Abboud on her right, Unholy Scout Maria on her right. Janice knew she was coming, of course, courtesy of Carlsberg’s devices, and as soon as Tamika reached the wheelchair in which her second-in-command was ensconced, a few brief words assured their identities.  
“Eldritch Scout Janice?”  
The interim leader smiled. A knife appeared in her hand, and with a quick slash, the blood sacrifice welled forth from her arm. “Tamika.” Janice’s expression grew grim, again, the whole of the extended Book Club watching. “With the power invested in me as the Junior Troop Leader of Girl Scout Troop 518̵̧͏̼7͓̱͜2̷̧̮̱͖͈̣̞ͅͅ , Secretary of the My Little Pony Appreciation Club, and Deputy Leader of the Night Vale Book Club, I hereby name you Leader of the Extended Book Club in my place, until the time when you dictate otherwise or until your ghost is successfully banished from this plane for all eternity.” Three fingers with the thumb and little finger together, dipped in the blood on her arm, sketched a symbol in the air. “Tamika Flynn, do you accept this duty?”  
“I do.” Tamika took the proffered knife and made a similar cut along her own arm, whetting her fingers and pressing them to Janice’s. She did not make the Scout’s half-salute like her deputy had, but then, she wasn’t a Scout.  
“Do you swear to protect Night Vale from all that which would threaten the well-being of its people and its culture, so long as you do hold this mantle?”  
The vows were similar, though. Maybe in another life, she would have been graced with a scarlet envelope in her youth. “I do.”  
“Do you swear to abdicate your post, if needed, for the health of the Extended Book Club, and to ensure that it is always ruled and composed of children? For only children see all threats.”  
“I do.” In this life, however, it was probably just as well. The Scouts were insular, and theoretically owned by Strex—only someone from outside their organizations would be able to take control, and only someone from outside their organizations would think to open it up to every child and teenager in town that would fight. Tamika relaxed into the tingle of the oath which encircled their fingertips.  
“And finally,” Janice’s eyes glowed dark with the power, her voice grown low and velvet. “If the soldiers that you lead should die in vain, do you swear to honor them with valiant ends, regardless of the cost?”  
Tamika kept her face controlled, regardless of the grief which crashed through her at those words. Valiant ends. Like the characters in a storybook. She hated it—but then, she would just have to make sure they never again died in vain. In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix must first burn, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents.  
“I do.”  
Their fingers parted, and a small smile traced itself along Janice’s face once more. “Then the burden is passed.” A bow. “All hail Tamika Flynn, undying Leader of the Extended Book Club!”  
“Janice?” her voice was but a murmur, audible only to the girl in the wheelchair before her. “Thank you. You are still my deputy.”  
Eldritch Scout Janice gave a subtle grimace at that. “I wish I didn’t have to be.”  
“I know.”

  
Tamika turned back to the crowd before her, her statements clipped as she issued orders. “Cecil will be arriving with reinforcements at the recruiting center for the vague yet menacing government agency. Some of you already know this. Most of those reinforcements will be outsiders, interlopers in our town. Treat them with… respect.” Her gaze skimmed over the tops of upturned heads. Finally, she continued. “Squads 3A, 4B, and 23Ѫ, you will be on escort duty with me. Be warned—Cecil may be present, but he is not the same Cecil you used to know. We must be vigilant.” Her eyes raked across the small sea of people, the hardness of basalt cast in her gaze. “Just in case.”

~~~

The ride had been uneventful enough.  
But they had supposedly passed the coordinates they were looking for _several times now_ , and there had been no sign of a town. Just—desert. And whenever they passed over what was supposedly the spot, there seemed to be a blip on the GPS—one minute they were at such a distance where the town should be not quite in sight, and the next they were on the other side. Tony frowned. Natasha was just as confused as he was, by the looks of it, as they skimmed just about a hundred feet above the ground, and Bruce mostly just looked restless. John was the same closed book he had been when they got in, humming softly with his eyes closed. But Coulson—Coulson was twitchier than Tony had ever seen him, gnawing on his lip as he stared out the window, fists clenched in his lap.  
“Coulson.” Tony let out a sigh when the agent’s only answer was a brief glance and an artificial smile. “I know something’s up. What’s going on?”  
Nat managed to keep her eyes out the windshield, but Bruce looked straight to Tony. “What do you mean?” he intoned, voice hoarse. “Why, why would he know?”  
“Have you _ever_ seen Coulson fidget? Ever? No. Something’s wrong, and he knows it.”  
The agent’s gaze fell back to the window. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing unexpected.”  
“Then why aren’t we there yet?” Tony pressed. “I mean obviously, we’ve been in New Mexico for like three hours, Coulson, we should be there. What was the place called, again? Night—”  
“Night Vale.” John’s graveyard-deep voice interrupted, and the prisoner opened his eyes. He seemed… surprisingly neutral, honestly, hands folded neatly in his lap. “It doesn’t want us back.”  
There was a frustrated hiss from Coulson. “You mean it doesn’t want _me_ back.”  
“Or perhaps it fears for my safety, but that strikes me as supremely unlikely, given the predicaments it has landed me in in the past. Night Vale does not fear for my safety, it ensures it.”  
“You don’t know that.” The agent’s voice was cold. “Strex still managed to get its claws on you, after all. Just look at the Auction.”  
“How do _you_ know about what happened at the Sheriff’s Secret Police Annual Auction of Seized Property? You weren’t in Night Vale at the time.” Curiosity, pure and simple. And then—“Ah,” a wave of serene surprise slipped through his voice, “you have learned how to tune in to my broadcasts from outside. Or perhaps someone has recorded them, and you have listened to that.”  
“That’s more like it, yes.” Coulson’s face returned to that bland smile. “It can’t keep us out—well, I’m sure it _can_ keep us out forever. I just hope it won’t.”  
“What are you talking about?” Bruce echoed slowly. “You’re—you’re talking about this place as if it’s a living thing. It can keep people out? Agent Coulson, why, why would it keep you out? Specifically?”  
The Night Vale natives exchanged looks. Finally Coulson answered. “I’m not supposed to be there anymore. I left during Career Day, part of the deal there is that you aren’t supposed to ever come back.” He bit his lip. “Look, Cecil, is there some way that you can, I don’t know. Talk to the town? Or the Mayor? Get it to let you in?”  
The prisoner pursed his lips. “Ordinarily, the town simply lets me in and out whenever I want, so long as no particular danger awaits me. I believe that is one of the mayoral privileges as well. I suppose if Dana, or anyone who has become Mayor in her place, could leave… no.” He stilled. His brow furrowed for a moment, and then he laid two fingers on the closed eye. Tony winced as that abominable ringing started up again, not too loud but still annoying, and John’s head tilted to the side. A faint glow issued from his eyes, and then—a pleased expression crossed John’s face, and his mouth opened.  
_Aͫ̇̄̅̌ȓ̷͝ęͥ̐͛̄̂ ̵̶̆͜y͐͂͢͜oͧ̌ͭͦͬu͂̌ͥͪ͛͗͞ ̶́̊ͩ͏ŗ̀e̛ͥͦ̃ͤ̇͜͡ąͥ̂̑͊̇͝d̶̉ͣ͛̌ͨy͗͛͗?̴̡̈̋̈͌̇́ͤ̂ͤ_ The words poured like syrup from his lips. _N̶̂͆ͬo͗ͨͫ̅̇̚͠?ͯ͘_ Staticky, enormously unpleasant syrup that prickled in the air. “G̡i̢͢v̶̨ę ͢t͠͡he̶̡̕m _j̡̢u̴s_ _͏_ _̷̧t_ _͡_ _̶_ _͢_ a͘͡͡ ͝m̛o͏men͏̛t̡.͟” Was it just Tony, or was that last spoken in an almost _normal_ voice?  
The ringing stopped.  
And a glittering panorama opened up before them.  
Well, not that much of a panorama. Really it just looked like any other small town; a few clusters of buildings, a run-down shopping mall. An Arby’s, with—what the hell was that? Were those… lights, hovering above it? And there was an abandoned lot, and a forest in the middle of the desert, somehow, and, and, and—they passed over it.  
Right.  
They had to drop John off at the SHIELD recruitment branch first. Also: Since when did SHIELD have recruiting stations? Tony ran a hand through his hair. This place gave him the creeps.  
“ _Oh…”_ John’s voice trailed off with an odd note, and Tony turned, hoping to see what was so wrong—John was no longer nearly so relaxed.  
“Listeners—I really hope this isn’t being broadcasted.” The man’s syllables were clear, if breathless. “Letting Strex know that we’re here, that _I’m here,_ that would be a very unfortunate turn of events.” All three eyes were wide open, staring violet into the depths of infinity. “But now that I have come within city limits, after so long, so _very horribly long,_ I have to say that this is all a little overwhelming.” The creature shivered, a full-body trembling that Tony could barely notice beyond the stark glow of his hair and eyes, and the inky void of those shifting tattoos which twined about his arms. “I can see. So much.” A gasp. “Oh, my town, my Night Vale. My Carlos, my perfect, _perfect_ scientist, I can’t believe I’m back! Oh—” Was he… starting to choke? Mouth gaping, throat clenching and releasing from second to second, John stood up, or rather began to hover, the manacles tumbling unnoticed to the floor. At least Bruce already managed to sidle out of the way, Tony thought. He would absolutely be freaking out by now if he were still next to that, that—  
There was a beat of silence, leaving John to blink, and blink, as if some slideshow were rippling through his brain at racetrack speeds, and then—  
“We’ve arrived.” John and Natasha spoke at the same time.

Tony gazed down at the government facility beneath them. Alone, it was a squat grey building crouched upon the infinite desert sands. But wait—wait, that couldn’t be the SHIELD team who was supposed to meet them. They were, they were just a bunch of kids! The mini-quinjet touched down on the roof, and Nat turned off the engine, and—kids. Two or three in wheelchairs, about half of them in what looked like some sort of scout uniform, all with dead serious expressions. In front of all of them, her hair in countless short dreadlocks and adorned with pink butterfly clips, stood a little black girl with eyes like an old war veteran and a stance with presidential levels of confidence.  
“Tamika…” came a whisper, and John was back on the ground.  
Bruce drew in a hissing breath. “They’re just kids. Where’s the SHIELD team? What happened to them?”  
Coulson strode out of the cockpit, his own neutral expression restored, and Natasha followed. “The SHIELD team isn’t coming. That must be Tamika Flynn. Stark, Banner, Romanov, Night Vale has not heard from this recruitment center in several years. We’re here to find out why. Cecil?”  
“Where’s—” _Carlos_ , he keened mentally, but bit down on the words. “Yes. That is Tamika.”  
“Good,” Coulson began to tap a sequence into the little lock screen on the doorframe. “Before we exit and greet our new _team,_ I need to know that you—Avengers, that is, Stark, Banner, and Agent Romanov—follow a few rules. More on this later, but first and most importantly right now, I need you to do two things: First, respect Tamika Flynn and her command structure. I understand that she’s a minor, but from what I’ve been told, she knows what she’s doing. Second, and I _really do mean this,_ ” he glared, “check with me before investigating _anything._ Understood?” Without waiting for an answer, he pressed a final button, and the door creaked open.  
They stepped out into the desert heat.  
The girl—Tamika?—folded her arms, her eyes fixed on John.  
“Tamika,” came the prisoner’s croak.  
“Do not try to fight,” a dispassionate remark from the child’s lips. “We have the place surrounded.” Her head turned, slightly, though her gaze stayed where it was. “Cecil. ‘Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse’, Margaret Atwood, the Blind Assassin. I sincerely hope it will be good to have you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific CWs: Station Management, basically. Also some rather intense blood oaths. 
> 
> Thank you folks so much for reading!  
> This is the end of part 1, but don't worry, there will absolutely be a part 2 forthcoming, I just haven't planned or written it yet. In the meantime, stay tuned for some oneshots and maybe even short multi-chapter things in the same series that are *definitely* coming, including at least one that will probably be up in two weeks as per the normal update schedule.  
> If you have suggestions for part 2, or for other stuff in the same universe, feel free to let me know (or write it yourself!) 
> 
> My art blog is https://artificialentgrove.tumblr.com/  
> My personal tumblr (which has a pretty random assortment of mostly fandom stuff)) is https://queerfandommiscellany.tumblr.com/  
> See you next time! <3  
> \- Wander/Ent

**Author's Note:**

> CWs: starvation, gore, electrocution, dehumanization, eldritch horror


End file.
